To miss reading this book would be a deprivation Los Angeles Times This [series] is a wonderful idea ... They are absurdist parables, by turns hilarious, unsettling and enigmatic. -- Nicholas Lezard Guardian [The series] sheds remarkable light on the literature, culture and politics of the region...anyone coming fresh to the field will be captivated by the richness, variety, humour and pathos of a classic literature that, through a shared historical experience, transcends national and linguistic boundaries. -- Cj Schuler Independent on Sunday I urge you to go and read them. -- Adam Thirlwell New Statesman This new series of Central European Classics is important well beyond simply providing 'good reads'. -- Stephen Vizinczey Daily Telegraph

E. M. Cioran (1911-1995) was one of Central Europe's most remarkable philosophers, author of what William Gass called romances on 'alienation, absurdity, boredom, futility, decay, the tyranny of history, the vulgarities of change, awareness as agony, reason as disease'. A Romanian, he lived much of his life in Paris and many of his major works were written in French, including A Short History of Decay, The Trouble with Being Born and Drawn and Quartered.