In this collection of aphorisms and short essays, E.M. Cioran sets about the task of peeling off the layers of false realities with which society masks the truth. For him, real hope lies in this task, and thus, while he perceives the world darkly, he refuses to give in to despair. He hits upon this ultimate truth by developing his notion of human history and events as "a procession of delusions," striking out at the so-called "Fallacies of Hope." By examining the relationship between truth and action and between absolutes, unknowables, and frauds, Cioran comes out, for once, in favor of being.
Born in Romania in 1911, E. M. Cioran moved to Paris when he was 26 and lived there until his death in 1995. A maverick and iconoclast, he has been called "the last worthy disciple of Nietzsche" as well as a brilliant aphorist and stylist. His other books include Drawn and Quartered, A Short History of Decay, The Temptation to Exist, and The Trouble with Being Born, all available from Arcade.
"A sort of final philosopher of the Western world.. Cioran's statements have the compression of poetry and the audacity of cosmic clowning." - Washington Post
"Cioran has a delicate, and, above all, gallant intelligence... His incomparable work [is] the last great expression of the European mind." - David Rieff
