Illuminations

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), a German-Jewish man of letters, was known to the discerning few as one of the most original critical and analytical minds of his time. His work consisted of literary essays, general reflection, aphorisms, and probings into cultural phenomena. He achieved posthumous fame when a collected edition of his writings appeared in Germany fifteen years after his death. 

Illuminations includes Benjamin´s views on Kafka, with whom he felt the closest personal affinity, his studies on Baudelaire and proust (both of whom he translated), his essays on Leskov and on Brecht´s Epic theater. Also included are his penetrating study on "The work of Art in the Age of mechanical Reproduction", a cultural assessment of the interrelation of art, technology, and mass society; an illuminating discussion of traslation as a literary mode; and his thesis on the philosophy of history.