Philosophy/Literary Theory

Praise for the French Edition

“Marcel Hénaff’s book remains to this day the best on Sade’s work.” Magazine Littéraire

“This book has nothing to do with the usual production of sadologists, Sade devotees, or other Sade hacks. Hénaff’s way of resuscitating the body (of the text) of the Divine Marquis is brilliant. A gold mine for scholars, a treat for perverts.” Le Nouvel Observateur

“One of the best books written on Sade, important both for what it says and for what it shows.” Les Nouvelles Littéraires

“This book will make its mark in Sade criticism. Sade’s merit is to have raised essential questions; Marcel Hénaff’s merit is to have shown this with unusual vigor.” Revue Dix-Huitième Siècle

“This important study of the libertine body is a complex and cultured book.” Art Press

There is scarcely a cultural figure as flamboyant and controversial as the Marquis de Sade, the father of the new libertine body. But this is not, Hénaff maintains, the only way to see Sade. In this long-awaited English translation, Hénaff says that Sade should be discussed less for the sensual heat of his writing and more for the larger poetic and economic model his work represents.

Marcel Hénaff is a philosopher and anthropologist in the Department of Literature at the University of California, San Diego.

Xavier Callahan received the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund award for her translations of works by Graciela Reyes. She lives on Vashon Island, Washington.

University of Minnesota Press
Printed in U.S.A.
Cover design by Percolator