Name: The Ruin of Kasch
Price: 501.00 ZAR
Availability: InStock
Author: Roberto Calasso
ISBN: 9780374252106

Type

Physical Book

Author

Roberto Calasso

Translated by

Richard Dixon

Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Language

English

Format

Paperback

Dimensions

20.8 x 13.7 x 2.8 cm

Weight

0.41 kg.

ISBN13

9780374252106

Synopsis "The Ruin of Kasch"

A brilliant new translation of a classic work on violence and revolution as seen through mythology and artThe Ruin of Kasch takes up two subjects--"the first is Talleyrand, and the second is everything else," wrote Italo Calvino when the book first appeared in 1983. Hailed as one of those rare books that persuade us to see our entire civilization in a new light, its guide is the French statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, who knew the secrets of the ancien régime and all that came after, and was able to adapt the notion of "legitimacy" to the modern age. Roberto Calasso follows him through a vast gallery of scenes set immediately before and after the French Revolution, making occasional forays backward and forward in time, from Vedic India to the porticoes of the Palais-Royal and to the killing fields of Pol Pot, with appearances by Goethe and Marie Antoinette, Napoleon and Marx, Walter Benjamin and Chateaubriand. At the center stands the story of the ruin of Kasch, a legendary kingdom based on the ritual killing of the king and emblematic of the ruin of ancient and modern regimes. Offered here in a new translation by Richard Dixon, The Ruin of Kasch is, as John Banville wrote, "a great fat jewel-box of a book, gleaming with obscure treasures."

Roberto Calasso

(Author)

View Author's Page

Roberto Calasso (1941-2021) was an Italian writer, editor, and essayist known for his erudition and narrative style that blends mythology, history, and literature. His most famous work is The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony (1988), an essay-novel about Greek mythology. Among his notable books are also Ka (1996), focused on Hindu tradition, Literature and the Gods (2001) and The Book of All Books (2019), which reinterprets biblical texts from a literary and philosophical perspective.

His literary production, often classified within the essay and philosophical narrative, explores the history of culture and its symbols. In addition to his work as an author, he was the director of Adelphi publishing house, influencing the literary world with his publications and translations.

See less