The Death of the Author\Der Tod des Autors, engl. Ausg.
Part murder mystery and all jet-black satire, and based on a real
life scandal, this edgy novella tells the story of Leoppold Sfax,
world-renowned as the creator of "The Theory - a bizarre
literary theory that grew from an intellectual folly to a dominant
school of criticism that enslaved college campuses across the
country.
However, The Theory, which holds that the text of any piece of
writing tells us all that we need to know about its author (as if
the author himself is "dead") takes on extra perversity
when the revered -or is it feared?- Sfax is found to have once
written something that seems...well, murderously revealing.
In the hands of Gilbert Adair, it's a dexterously wrought and
hysterically devilish look at academic cultishness. It's also a
taut metaphysical murder mystery that confounds the reader's
expectations on almost every page and reserves its most stunning
surprise - the ultimate whodunit twist - for the very last pag
