Das obszöne Werk

The stories compiled under the title "The Obscene Work" (first published in German in 1972 by Rowohlt) were described by Susan Sontag as "chamber music of pornographic literature." In the more recent intense French reception of Bataille—by Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Pierre Klosowski, or Philippe Sollers—his erotic writings do not solely belong to this genre. Bataille presents the truth of eroticism tragically: in conscious contrast to both societal condemnation and the hygienic sterilization of sexuality, he identifies it with horror, dread, and death.