Clandestine Encounters: Philosophy in the Narratives of Maurice Blanchot

Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Christophe Bident and Jean-Luc Nancy for answering questions about Maurice Blanchot that I put to them while editing this collection of essays. As always, the Comité de Rédaction Espace Maurice Blanchot supplied exact information and sound advice. Marianne Peracchio translated Christophe Bident’s essay, and Alain Toumayan helped to bring it to a high polish in English. I am indebted to both of them. JeanLouis Giovannoni generously gave permission for several lines from his poems to be translated into English and to appear in Christophe Bident’s essay on Au moment voulu. Claire Lyu kindly answered my questions about some French idioms in Blanchot. From the very beginning, when I proposed this collection of essays to her over lunch, Barbara Hanrahan, director of the University of Notre Dame Press, has been supportive. Her ability to tell what will be a good book from a few words about it, along with her insight into making books and her creativity in publishing them, make her a beacon in the world of university presses in North America. Rebecca DeBoer provided acute and probing copy-editing. Once again, my wife and children allowed me the time to reread those volumes published by Gallimard , Minuit, Fata Morgana, and several little presses, volumes that have given me such intricate pleasure over so many years. To my family I wish ix “le oui léger, innocent, de la lecture” in anything they read. To my fellow contributors, who know what it is to write on Blanchot, I recall these words in memory of their work, “Toujours cette angoisse au moment d’écrire. . . .” And to the dedicatee, Geoffrey Hartman, I simply say, “Pour l’amitié.” x Acknowledgments CLANDESTINE ENCOUNTERS ...