Georges Bataille

Georges Bataille (France, 1897-1962) was born in Billom in 1897. His father was blind. After a youthful period of intense mysticism, he engaged with Nietzsche, psychoanalysis, philosophy, religion, theology, and anthropology, and interacted with the surrealists without ever fully joining their ranks. He attended Alexandre Kojève's lectures on Hegel, who, along with Nietzsche and the Marquis de Sade, became a central reference point in his thought. In 1924, he was appointed to the National Library of France. In 1928, he published "Story of the Eye" under a pseudonym (Agra, 1980). He systematically engaged in publishing or participating in various magazines: "Documents" (1929-30), "Critique Sociale" (1933), "Minotaure" (1932-33), and primarily "Acephale," which he founded with the painter Andre Masson (1936). In 1935, during the Popular Front period, he founded the political group "Contre Attaque" with Andre Breton (a temporary reconciliation), Paul Eluard, Pierre Klossowski, Benjamin Peret, and Yves Tanguy. In 1936, he founded the College of Sacred Sociology with Roger Caillois and Michel Leiris. He wrote the books "The Notion of Expenditure" (1933), "Inner Experience" (1934 - after his initiation into Eastern methods), "The Blue of Noon" (1935), "Madame Edwarda" (1937 - under the pseudonym Pierre Angelique - Agra, 1980), "On Nietzsche" (1943 - which, along with "Guilty" and "Inner Experience," forms the "Atheological Sum"), "Archangelic" (1944), "Alleluia" (1947), "Theory of Religion" (1948), "Abbot C." (L'Abbe C. 1950). In 1946, he founded the magazine "Critique," which continued to be published even after his death in 1962. In 1950, he wrote the preface to the Marquis de Sade's "Justine or The Misfortunes of Virtue." In 1955, he wrote "Prehistoric Painting: Lascaux or the Birth of Art," in 1957 "Literature and Evil" (Plethron, 1979), and in 1961 "The Tears of Eros" (Nefeli, 1981). He died in Paris in 1962. In 1966 and 1967, J.J. Pauvert published two significant prose works that had not been released during his lifetime: "My Mother" (Agra, 2001) and "The Dead Man" (Agra, 1981). In 1971, Gallimard began publishing his multi-volume "Complete Works," which included many previously unknown writings, curated by Michel Foucault, Maurice Blanchot, and others.