Maurice Blanchot Papers Acquired by Harvard's Houghton Library

We always get a little jolt when we see Maurice Blanchot in the news, which unfortunately is a rare occurrence these days. So imagine our shock and delight when news came down the internet-pipes yesterday that Blanchot's papers were acquired by Harvard's Houghton Library. From the Houghton Library site:

Houghton Library has acquired the archive of French writer, literary theorist, and philosopher Maurice Blanchot (1907-2003) from his daughter, Cidalia Blanchot. Christie McDonald, Smith Professor of French Language and Literature at Harvard University, said, “I am thrilled by Houghton’s acquisition of this important archive. Scholars will have unprecedented access to material that will give us a deeper understanding of his work.”

Blanchot’s writings influenced a generation of postmodern and post-structuralist thinkers, and the Blanchot papers provide an incredibly rich research resource not only on Blanchot himself, but also the intellectual life of France in the twentieth century. His political thought was complicated and is still debated today: shifting from the extreme right in pre-World War II France to the extreme left in his opposition to the war in Algeria in the 1950s and support for student protests in 1968. Over the last 30 years of his life his written output was infrequent, and although he remained an important figure for many, he became reclusive. This has perhaps contributed to the intense interest in the unpublished writings he left behind.

Mon Dieu! The article goes on mention the array of correspondents included in the papers which reads like a who's who of mid-century French letters. Read all about it here.