The surviving correspondence between Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. * This is the first time all of the surviving correspondence between Adorno and Benjamin has appeared in English. * Provides a key to the personalities and projects of these two major intellectual figures.

The surviving correspondence between Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno, which appears here for the first time in its entirety in English translation, documents one of the most remarkable and intense intellectual relationships of modern times. In over a hundred letters, which range from brief and cordial exchanges to dense and detailed theoretical elucidations, it is now possible to trace the complex and developing character of Benjamin's and Adorno's attitudes to one another, and not least to many of their mutual friends, like Scholem, Bloch and Brecht. The correspondence also reveals the considerable lengths to which Adorno went in furthering Benjamin's interests intellectually and financially, and provides further insight into the cultural politics of the period and those of the Institute for Social Research. Both correspondents express their sharply formulated opinions in an extremely candid and vivid fashion. When this book appeared in German, it caused a sensation because it included passages previously excised in other versions of the letters - passages in which the two friends celebrate their own intimacy with frank remarks about other people. The animated discussion of central concepts in Benjamin's work - the aura, the notion of authentic experience, the perspective of redemptive criticism - makes the letters an invaluable resource for all students of this complex and enigmatic figure, and further clarifies the affinities and differences between his work and that of Adorno. And, naturally, the letters reveal the correspondents' hopes and fears, and often their illusions, in the context of rapidly unfolding political and social developments in a drastic period of modern history. The letters are extensively annotated with details concerning topics, writings, events and personalities directly referred to or implicitly alluded to in the correspondence, and the subjects discussed are cross-referenced with the relevant passages in the complete editions of Benjamin's and Adorno's work.

"[In this volume] the reader witnesses the hesitant, tension-filled process by which two individuals come together - individuals who could scarcely have approached each other in any other way than through the mediation of this literary form. True, they both repeatedly affirm their desire for personal meetings and face-to-face conversation. But the continued series of postponed and prevented visits (Adorno came to Paris, briefly, only twice) does not simply reflect adverse circumstances; it also bespeaks an unavowed preference for the obliqueness of letter writing. One gets the impression that the constraints of this medium protect the withdrawn Benjamin from the uncertainties and importunities of direct contact, and at the same time grant the austere Adorno greater freedom of critical expression." Jurgen Habermas, Die Zeit "Where Benjamin's cycles reveal the deliberately closed and enigmatic self-defensive nature of his personality, Adorno's letters are among the most remarkable things he himself ever wrote. Those letters document one of the most painful moments in Benjamin's life. Not the least interest of this correspondence is the questionable light in which it throws both of its protagonists: Benjamin for the riddle-like nature of his personality and the withdrawals and strategic or tactical evasions, so often evident here; and Adorno for the often self-important way in which he stages the flights of his own intelligence. The extraordinary and unique qualities of this correspondence stem from the confrontation in stages between two of the most intense and energetic minds of the century" Fredric Jameson, Duke University "These are complex, challenging texts that highlight the intellectual achievements of these two important thinkers. In discussions of such central concepts as the dialectical image, the problem of mediation between socioeconomic formations and cultural products, and especially the interrelation of new media technologies and aesthetics, these letters offer some of the most penetrating cultural theory written this century in any language." Michael Jennings, Princeton University