Ann Smock's fluent translation retains the tone and sense of the French; her introduction situates Blanchot in the French and American cultural spectrum and outlines the history of his critical concerns. Ann Smock, an associate professor of French at the University of California, Berkeley, also translated Blanchot's The Writing of the Disaster for the University of Nebraska Press in 1986.
Allan Stoekl is professor emeritus of French and comparative literature at Pennsylvania State University. His books include Bataille’s Peak: Energy, Religion, and Postsustainability (Minnesota, 2007) among others.
