My Mother is a unique bildungsroman of a young man's sexual initiation and corruption by his mother.' Publishers Weekly My Mother, Madame Edwarda and The Dead Man comprises three short pieces of erotic prose that fuse elements of sex and spirituality in a highly personal vision of the flesh. They present a world of sensation in which only the vaulting demands of disruptive excess and the anguish of heightened awareness can combat the stultifying world of reason and social order. Each of the narratives contains a sense of intoxication and insanity so carefully delineated by the author that it seems to infect the reader. Philosopher, novelist and critic, Georges Bataille is a major figure in twentieth-century literature whose startling and original ideas increasingly exert a vital influence on the shaping of thought, language and experience. Best known outside France for the vertiginous sexual delirium of his short novel, Story of the Eye, the vast scope of Bataille's interests and intellect made him a major force in many spheres. Bataille's essays range over such diverse topics as economics, psychoanalysis, Marxism, yoga and anthropology. His critical essays, Literature and Evil and his complex meditations on the dark coupling of sex and death, Eroticism, are both available from Marion Boyars. Bataille's available fiction includes L'Abbe C, a twisted document detailing the holy horrors of sex and Blue of Noon, now an established modern classic in its seventh printing.