![]() ![]() ![]() Binet’s novel imagines that the death of the author of The Death of the Author was not an accident but an intricately plotted assassination, weaving around it a story of professional rivalry, political intrigue and lashings of critical theory. Barthes, perhaps the greatest of the critical theorists whose work came to dominate postwar cultural discourse, died from injuries sustained when he was hit by a laundry van in February 1980. It is as erudite and readable as its predecessor, although this time, instead of having as its raison d’être the scrupulous rendering of historical fact, it uses a single event – the death of the critic Roland Barthes – as the springboard for a wildly inventive and engaging tale of scholars, spies and secret societies. Binet’s follow-up, The 7th Function of Language, also superbly translated by Sam Taylor, is another historical thriller. ![]()
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