The literary adventure of D.A.F. (1740-1814) is unique and paradoxical.
He was widely read in the nineteenth century, but his books disappeared
almost completely from circulation in the century. Meanwhile the
exegesis of Sade poured from the presses of the Western world in a flood
of words in which the writer, the novelist, and the exceptional pet
disappeared.
In France today, J. J. Pauvert, who considers Sade "the greatest French
writer," is publishing a new edition of the complete works with a new
introduction by Annie Le Brun. Sade: A Sudden Abyss is the translation
of this introduction, which shows Sade as the inventor of an entirely
new language through which he fathoms human nature, desire, and
relationships of power.
In this fresh and authoritative survey of Sade's work as a whole, Le
Brun frees it from such critics as Bataille, Blanchot, Klossowski, and
Barthes (who see Sade's language as a metaphor for history, society, or
writing itself). She asks, Where is Sade himself in these texts? What
exactly does Sade tell us? What is obscured when Sade's writing is
placed in a "universe of discourse" rather than understood as a
manifestation of a life spent in eleven prisons over twenty-seven years?
Like a powerful laser beam, her reflections cut through two centuries of
intellectual hide-and-seek and let Sade for the first time be seen and
read in his own light.
Annie Le Brun is a French poet and literary theorist. Her books include
Lâchez tout, a critique of the French neofeminist movement; A distance;
and Les chateaux de la subversion, a study of the Gothic tradition.
