There's a kind of exhilaration in this - and a kind of terror -- Will Self

Georges Bataille, French essayist and novelist, was born in 1897. He converted to Catholicism, then to Marxism, and was interested in psychoanalysis and mysticism. As curator of the municipal library in Orleans, he led a relatviely simple life, although he became involved, usually on the fringes, with the surrealist movement. He founded the literary review Critique in 1946, which he edited until his death in 1962, and was also a founder of the review Documents, which published many of the leading surrealist writers. His writing is a mixture of poetry and philosophy, fantasy and history. His first novel, Story of the Eye, was written under the pseudonym of Lord Auch. Bataille's other works include the novels L'Abbe C and My Mother, and the essays Eroticism and Literature and Evil.