cover image Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings

Reflections: Essays, Aphorisms, Autobiographical Writings

Walter Benjamin. Schocken Books Inc, $16 (400pp) ISBN 978-0-8052-0802-3

An extraordinary collection of writings of a major modern thinker and cultural critic, this is a companion volume to Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt. Here Benjamin evolves a theory of language as the medium of all creation, discusses theater and surrealism, recounts Berlin in the '20s, recalls conversations with Brecht, provides travelogues of various cities, including Moscow under Stalin. PW called this ""haunting, brilliant, modern.'' (April)