Andrea Timár provides a thoughtful reinterpretation of the thorniest issues raised by Hannah Arendt's work. Placing Arendt in dialogue with literary works and important thinkers of our own day, Timár shows where Arendt still has much to teach us even while remaining acutely aware of Arendt's blind spots. A thrilling and enlightening read.

John McGowan, Hanes Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA.

Focusing on Hannah Arendt's writings about literature, Andrea Timar opens new perspectives on one of the most important thinkers of our era. With rigor and care, Timar shows how the main vectors of Arendt's thought run through and at times develop out of, or are deflected by, her literary engagements.

Marc Redfield, Florence Pirce Grant University Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Brown University, USA

Written with clarity and verve, this insightful and important book takes a new step in the engagement between the work of Hannah Arendt and literature. Answering the question “What could an Arendtian approach to literature mean?”, Timar's acute and thoughtful readings rethink the relationship between Arendtian politics and key concepts: compassion, storytelling, contagion, recognition, responsibility, exclusion and plurality. In so doing, it challenges many of our assumptions about both the literary and the political.

Robert Eaglestone, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK