Roberte Ce Soir And, The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes

Like the works of Georges Bataille, and those of the Marquis de Sade before him, Klossowski's erotic fiction explores the connections between the mind and body. This pair of short novels merges the sexual misadventures of Octave, his striking young wife Roberte, and their nephew Antoine, with Klossowski's philosophical and theological concerns. Roberte Ce Soir is a dramatic enactment of Octave's ritual of hospitality in which Roberte offers herself to any guest who desires her, and The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes relates Roberte's predicament when she is forced to censor this same play. The resulting text represents one of the most provocative intellectual and sexual discourses of our time.