To miss reading this book would be a deprivation

Los Angeles Times

Sheds remarkable light on the literature, culture and politics of the region...anyone coming fresh to the field will be captivated by the richness, variety, humour and pathos of a classic literature that, through a shared historical experience, transcends national and linguistic boundaries.

- CJ Schüler, Independent on Sunday

A Short History of Decay (1949) is E. M. Cioran's nihilistic and witty collection of aphoristic essays concerning the nature of civilization in mid 20th-century Europe. Touching upon man's need to worship, the feebleness of God, the downfall of the Ancient Greeks and the melancholy baseness of all existence, Cioran's pieces are pessimistic in the extreme, but also display a beautiful certainty that renders them delicate, vivid, and memorable. Illuminating and brutally honest, A Short History of Decay dissects man's decadence in a remarkable series of moving and beautiful pieces.
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Witty and nihilistic essays from one of Central Europe's most remarkable philosophers.

Product details

ISBN
9780241343463
Published
2018
Publisher
Penguin Books Ltd; Penguin Classics
Weight
146 gr
Height
197 mm
Width
129 mm
Thickness
11 mm
Age
01, G, P, U, 01, 06, 05
Language
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Number of pages
192

Author

Biographical note

E. M. Cioran (1911-1995) was one of Central Europe's most remarkable philosophers, author of what William Gass called romances on 'alienation, absurdity, boredom, futility, decay, the tyranny of history, the vulgarities of change, awareness as agony, reason as disease'. A Romanian, he lived much of his life in Paris and many of his major works were written in French, including A Short History of Decay, The Trouble with Being Born and Drawn and Quartered.