Walter Benjamin - philosopher, essayist, literary and cultural theorist - was one of the most original writers and thinkers of the twentieth century. This new selection brings together Benjamin's major works, including 'One-Way Street', his dreamlike, aphoristic observations of urban life in Weimar Germany; 'Unpacking My Library', a delightful meditation on book-collecting; the confessional 'Hashish in Marseille'; and 'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction', his seminal essay on how technology changes the way we appreciate art. Also including writings on subjects ranging from Proust to Kafka, violence to surrealism, this is the essential volume on one of the most prescient critical voices of the modern age.

Contents:
— Introduction by Amit Chaudhuri

— On the Critique of Violence
— The Task of the Translator
— One-Way Street
— Hashish in Marseille
— Picturing Proust
— Surrealism
— Unpacking My Library
— Brief History of Photography
— Franz Kafka
— The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

— Notes