Maurice Blanchot (b. 1907) is the greatest French writer and thinker of the past century, who had a huge influence on modern humanitarian thought. The essay “Michel Foucault as I Imagine Him” (1986) paradoxically combines a panorama of Foucault’s work, a holistic description of the landscape of his thought, and an unexpected, touching in its restraint, confession of friendship. The review included in the appendix was written by Blanchot on the occasion of the publication of one of the intellectual bestsellers of the 20th century, the famous “History of Madness” - then “practically the first” book by an unknown author.