Collection: Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille (1897–1962) was a French writer, theorist and librarian whose work moved between fiction, philosophy, economics and anthropology in ways that resisted disciplinary containment. His first published fiction, Histoire de l’Œil (1928, translated as Story of the Eye), appeared under a pseudonym; his theoretical writings, including L’Érotisme (1957) and the trilogy La Part maudie (1949–61), developed a sustained engagement with eroticism, death, sacrifice and the concept of expenditure without return. Bataille founded the journal Documents (1929–30) and was associated with the Collège de Sociologie; his work became central to French post-structuralist thought through its influence on Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes.