The Incident at Antioch / L'Incident d'Antioche

Widely translated and considered to be the most important philosopher of our time, Alain Badiou is also a novelist and the author of four celebrated comedies and two tragedies. The Incident at Antioch is the last of his plays to be published in French and the first to be published in English, introducing a side of Badiou the Anglophone world has never encountered before. As a crucial link between Badiou's key early philosophical work, Theory of the Subject, and his magnum opus, Being and Event, The Incident at Antioch marks the philosopher's transition from classical Marxism to a "politics of subtraction" far removed from party and state. Written with striking eloquence and extraordinary poetic richness, and shifting from highly serious emotional and intellectual drama to surreal comic interlude, the play features statesmen, workers, and revolutionaries struggling to reconcile the nature and practice of politics. This bilingual edition presents L'Incident d'Antioche in its original French and, on facing pages, an expertly-executed English translation. Badiou adds a special preface, and an introduction by the scholar Kenneth Reinhard connects the play to its primary influences: Paul Claudel's The City, Saint Paul and the early history of the Church, and the innovative mathematical thinking of Paul Cohen. The translation includes Susan Spitzer's extensive notes clarifying allusions and quotations and hinting at Badiou's intentions. The volume concludes with an interview with Badiou on the play's settings, themes, and events, as well as his ongoing literary and conceptual experimentation on stage and off.