“(Di Cesare) mostra, facendo ricorso a Paul Celan come a Emmanuel Lévinas, che nella storia del pensiero c'è sia il pericolo del dispositivo totalitario, che ha condotto l'umano nel disumano dei lager e dei gulag e che sempre si riaffaccia sotto altre mentite spoglie anche nei nostri tempi, sia la salvezza che quel meccanismo disinnesca riconoscendo il volto nomade dell'alterità che non è solo del reale, ma dello stesso linguaggio che la rivela e ci rivela”.
Corriere della Sera

Speaking and understanding are the ways in which all speakers translate themselves in the language they consider their own, but within which they actually live as exiles. These pages draw on the philosophical hermeneutics of Martin Heidegger and Hans-Georg Gadamer, whose decisive arguments they radicalise by stressing their convergence with the deconstruction theory of Jacques Derrida. If it is possible to identify Auschwitz as the Babel of the twentieth century – the original thesis of the book – this is partly due the reflections of the German Jews who, from Franz Rosenzweig the Walter Benjamin, offered their precious contribution to the question of translation by reflecting on extraneousness in language. In the planetary exile of the globalised world, reinterpreted in an anarchic sense utopia is the place that no longer exists, but will always be there. Following Paul Celan, the protagonist of the final part, utopia stands out on the other side of the border in the “breathturn revolution” that breaks silence, in the openness of a word, which is not a stable, static dwelling but is nomadic and migratory, a precarious, unsafe tent, the only shelter in the desert of promise. This “tent of meeting”, the challenge of a different dwelling, is the word of conspiracy.

Donatella Di Cesare is a professor of Theoretical Philosophy at the Università La Sapienza in Rome and of Philosophical Hermeneutics at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa. She is one of the most active voices in the contemporary public debate and a regular contributor to L’Espresso (Repubblica). Her books have also been translated and talked about abroad. Her most recent publications are: Terrore e modernità (Terror and Modernity) (2017) and Marrani. L’altro dell’altro (Marranos. The other of the other) (2018). With Bollati Boringhieri she published Israele. Terra, ritorno, anarchia [Israel. Land, returning and Anarchy] (2014), Heidegger e gli ebrei. I “quaderni neri” [Heidegger and the Jews. The “black books”] (2014 and 2016), Heidegger & Sons. Eredità e futuro di un filosofo [Heidegger & Sons. Legacy and future of a philosopher] (2015), Tortura [Torture] (2016) and Stranieri residenti. Una filosofia della migrazione [Resident Strangers. Philosophy of migration] (2017), Sulla vocazione politica della filosofia [On the political vocation of philosophy] (2018), Virus sovrano? L’asfissia capitalistica [Sovereign virus? Capitalist asphyxia] (2020) and Il tempo della rivolta (The Time of Revolt) (2021).