Ending and Unending AgonyPublished posthumously, Ending and Unending Agony is Philippe Lacoue Labarthes only book entirely devoted to the French writer and essayist Maurice Blanchot (19072003). The place of Blanchot in Lacoue Labarthes thought was both discreet and profound, involving difficult, agonizing questions about the status of literature, with vast political and ethical stakes. Together with Plato, Holderlin, Nietzsche, Benjamin, and Heidegger, Blanchot represents a