{"product_id":"the-conspiracy-isbn-9781844677689","title":"The Conspiracy","description":"\u003ci\u003eThe Conspiracy\u003c\/i\u003e is the last and most acclaimed novel by French writer and activist Paul Nizan, who died two years after its publication fighting the Germans at the Battle of Dunkirk. Hailed by Jean-Paul Sartre as Nizan’s masterpiece, the book centers upon the figure of Bertrand Rosenthal, a misguided philosophy student studying in pre-war Paris. Eager to foment a revolution and having little grasp of his own motives, Rosenthal draws a small group of disciples into a conspiracy both fatuous and deadly. Simultaneously, he plunges into a forbidden—and ultimately tragic—love affair as the intertwined plots move inexorably toward their twin destinations of betrayal and death.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Conspiracy\u003c\/i\u003e won the coveted Prix Interallié in 1938. This new edition includes Walter Benjamin’s critique of the book, available here for the first time in English.“A complex mixture of history and analysis constitutes the great value of Nizan’s book ... A hard, true testimony at a time when ‘the Young’ are forming groups and congratulating themselves, when the young man thinks he has rights because he is young.”—Jean-Paul Sartre\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“It is a delicate, sometimes lyrical, evocation of the atmosphere and attitudes of the late Twenties. It catches the tone of youthful conversation and shows the interplay between intelligence and absurdity, feeling and frivolity, without any of the propagandist simplifications one might have expected from a Communist writer dealing with the privileged denizens of the Ecole Normale Supe?rieure ... \u003ci\u003eThe Conspiracy\u003c\/i\u003e is a genuine piece of literature.”—John Weightman, \u003ci\u003eNew York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003ePaul Nizan\u003c\/b\u003e was born in Tours, France in 1905, the son of a railway engineer. A close friend of Sartre at the Lycée Henri IV and at the Ecole normale supérieure, he joined the Communist Party in the late 1920s and became one of its best-known journalists and intellectuals. His works include \u003ci\u003eAden, Arabie\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eLes Chiens de Garde\u003c\/i\u003e; \u003ci\u003eAntoine Bloyé\u003c\/i\u003e; and \u003ci\u003eLe Cheval de Troie\u003c\/i\u003e. In 1939, following the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Nizan left the party and was killed the following year in the Battle of Dunkirk fighting against the German army.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eJean-Paul Sartre\u003c\/b\u003e was a prolific philosopher, novelist, public intellectual, biographer, playwright and founder of the journal \u003ci\u003eLes Temps Modernes\u003c\/i\u003e. Born in Paris in 1905 and died in 1980, Sartre was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964—and turned it down. His books include \u003ci\u003eNausea, Intimacy\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Flies\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eNo Exit, Sartre’s War Diaries,\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eCritique of Dialectical Reason\u003c\/i\u003e, and the monumental treatise \u003ci\u003eBeing and Nothingness\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWalter Benjamin\u003c\/b\u003e was a German-Jewish Marxist literary critic, essayist, translator, and philosopher. He was at times associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory and is the author of \u003ci\u003eIlluminations\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Arcades Project\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe Origin of German Tragic Drama.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eQuintin Hoare\u003c\/b\u003e is the director of the Bosnian Institute and has translated numerous works by Sartre, Antonio Gramsci, and other French authors. He lives in the United Kingdom.","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301303996645,"sku":"NP9781844677689","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781844677689.jpg?v=1767738824","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-conspiracy-isbn-9781844677689","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}