Roberto Calasso – författare

A brilliant new translation of a classic work on violence and revolution as seen through mythology and artThe Ruin of Kasch takes up two subjects—“the first is Talleyrand, and the second is everything else,” wrote Italo Calvino when the book first appeared in 1983. Hailed as one of those rare books that persuade us to see our entire civilization in a new light, its guide is the French statesman Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, who knew the secrets of the ancien régime and all that came after, and was able to adapt the notion of “legitimacy” to the modern age. Roberto Calasso follows him through a vast gallery of scenes set immediately before and after the French Revolution, making occasional forays backward and forward in time, from Vedic India to the porticoes of the Palais-Royal and to the killing fields of Pol Pot, with appearances by Goethe and Marie Antoinette, Napoleon and Marx, Walter Benjamin and Chateaubriand. At the center stands the story of the ruin of Kasch, a legendary kingdom based on the ritual killing of the king and emblematic of the ruin of ancient and modern regimes. Offered here in a new translation by Richard Dixon, The Ruin of Kasch is, as John Banville wrote, “a great fat jewel-box of a book, gleaming with obscure treasures.”

A book that begins before Adam and ends after us. In this magisterial work by the Italian intellectual superstar Roberto Calasso, figures of the Bible and its whole outline emerge in a new light: one that is often astonishing and disquieting, as indeed—more than any other—is the book from which they originateRoberto Calasso’s The Book of All Books is a narration that moves through the Bible as if through a forest, where every branch—every verse—may offer some revelation. Where a man named Saul becomes the first king of a people because his father sent him off to search for some donkeys that had gone astray. Where, in answer to an invitation from Jerusalem’s king, the queen of a remote African realm spends three years leading a long caravan of young men, girls dressed in purple, and animals, and with large quantities of spices, to ask the king certain questions. And where a man named Abraham hears these words from a divine voice: “Go away from your land, from your country and from the house of your father toward the land that I will show you”—words that reverberate throughout the Bible, a story about a separation and a promise followed by many other separations and promises.The Book of All Books, the tenth part of a series, parallels in many ways the second part, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. There, gods and heroes of the Greek myths revealed new physiognomies, whereas here many figures of the Bible and its whole outline emerge in a new light: one that is often astonishing and disquieting, as indeed is the book—more so than any other—from which they originate.

The Tablet of Destinies is a captivating retelling of the ancient Mesopotamian Flood myth, masterfully woven by Roberto Calasso, "a literary institution of one" (The Paris Review). In this eleventh installment of his monumental literary project, Calasso explores the eternal life of Utnapishtim, the savior of humankind. Long ago, when the gods grew weary of the clamor of humans, they resolved to destroy them with a great Flood. Yet Ea, the god of fresh underground water, dissented and guided his favored mortal, Utnapishtim, to build a boat and preserve the creatures of the Earth.As a reward for his courage, Utnapishtim is granted immortality by Enlil, king of the gods, and exiled to the island of Dilmun. Millennia later, Sindbad the Sailor finds himself shipwrecked on this legendary isle, where he and Utnapishtim embark on a profound discourse about bravery, sacrifice, and the human condition. The Tablet of Destinies delves into our most ancient mythologies, presenting a continuous narrative that traces the genesis of human civilization. Calasso''s sweeping epic, commencing with The Ruin of Kasch in 1983, is a testament to the enduring power of myth and storytelling.