From the publisher: Walter Benjamin is recognized as one of the most original and significant thinkers of the 19th and 20th centuries and one of the most subtle analysts of literary and social phenomena. Benjamin's literary-critical and theoretical-literary publications collected in this volume, presenting a kaleidoscopic picture of the author's contemporary literary life, are offered to the Russian reader for the first time. Table of ContentsA. Belobratov. Preface.7 Autobiography. 15 “The Idiot” by Dostoevsky. 21The task of the translator. 27Charles Baudelaire. Poet in the era of mature capitalism. 47Paul Valery. To the 60th birthday. 235To the portrait of Proust. 243Surrealism: the last snapshot of the European intelligentsia. 263Julien Green. 283Johann Jacob Bachofen. 293Karl Kraus. 313Theories of German fascism. 359Left melancholy. 376Narrator. 383History of literature and literary criticism. 419Detective novel on the road. 429I'm unpacking my library. 433Notes 445