The Paradisiacs
Last Kingdom IV
Will be published approx. on 25. June 2026
Book
Hardback
202 pages
978-1-80309-555-4 (ISBN)
Description
Pascal Quignard delves into the uncanny bond between recognition and loss, outlining how our earliest experiences shape our longing for a paradise we can never reclaim.
What if paradise was not a place we lost, but one we never truly knew? In Paradisiacs, the fourth volume of the Last Kingdom series, Pascal Quignard meditates on the nature of paradise-not as an Eden to which we might return, but as a place of origin that lingers in myth. Through his signature blend of ancient texts, Paleolithic art, psychoanalysis, and personal reflection, Quignard explores our primal longing for recognition. He traces this yearning back to the erstwhile, a prenatal paradise from which we are expelled at birth, and examines how resemblance and recognition shape our identities.
At once poetic and philosophical, Paradisiacs invites readers into Quignard's singular world, where language and history coalesce into a profound rumination on the origins of selfhood. With John Taylor's masterly translation, this latest installment of Last Kingdom is a hypnotic and revelatory reading experience for those drawn to the intersections of philosophy and the ineffable.
What if paradise was not a place we lost, but one we never truly knew? In Paradisiacs, the fourth volume of the Last Kingdom series, Pascal Quignard meditates on the nature of paradise-not as an Eden to which we might return, but as a place of origin that lingers in myth. Through his signature blend of ancient texts, Paleolithic art, psychoanalysis, and personal reflection, Quignard explores our primal longing for recognition. He traces this yearning back to the erstwhile, a prenatal paradise from which we are expelled at birth, and examines how resemblance and recognition shape our identities.
At once poetic and philosophical, Paradisiacs invites readers into Quignard's singular world, where language and history coalesce into a profound rumination on the origins of selfhood. With John Taylor's masterly translation, this latest installment of Last Kingdom is a hypnotic and revelatory reading experience for those drawn to the intersections of philosophy and the ineffable.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Greenford
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 203 mm
Width: 127 mm
Weight
454 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-80309-555-4 (9781803095554)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Pascal Quignard is the author of over sixty titles and is widely regarded as one of the foremost literary French writers today. In 2002, he won France's most prestigious literary prize, the Prix Goncourt for The Roving Shadows. John Taylor has translated many key French, Swiss, Italian, and modern Greek writers. His translations include books by Philippe Jaccottet, Georges Perros, Catherine Colomb, and Pierre Chappuis, as well as Pascal Quignard's The Unsaddled and Dying of Thinking. Taylor is also the author of several books of poetry and poetic prose, including, most recently, What Comes from the Night.
Content
CHAPTER 1 (Isola d'Ischia)
CHAPTER 2 A scene deleted from the beginning of the novel All the World's Mornings
CHAPTER 3 De vita beata
CHAPTER 4 De situ terrae sanctae
CHAPTER 5 The Woman of Boeges
CHAPTER 6 Zeitlose
CHAPTER 7 Earthly odour
CHAPTER 8 The fabulous embrace
CHAPTER 9 The Story of the Governor of the Omi Province
CHAPTER 10 The tough difference
CHAPTER 11 The yellow woman reading
CHAPTER 12 Immeditatus
CHAPTER 13 Impossible Resemblance
CHAPTER 14 Spitting images
CHAPTER 15 Julia the Elder
CHAPTER 16 (The Lost)
CHAPTER 17 Sand and Sandeau
CHAPTER 18 The cypress abode
CHAPTER 19 Miso soup
CHAPTER 20 (Natasha Rostova recognizing herself in the shadow)
CHAPTER 21 The Tiber
CHAPTER 22 The unrecognizable gardener
CHAPTER 23 On the nudity of Marie d'Enghein
CHAPTER 24 Le Beau Dunois
CHAPTER 25 De similitudine carnis
CHAPTER 26 Rue Lenine
CHAPTER 27 The inner world
CHAPTER 28 Gutter meum
CHAPTER 29 Out of the Body Experience
CHAPTER 30 The Guerres
CHAPTER 31 Medusa
CHAPTER 32 Time and The Novel
CHAPTER 33 Disturbing resemblances eliciting anxious conversations
CHAPTER 34 Narcissus the Hunter
CHAPTER 35 The Athens Pig
CHAPTER 36 Ulysses the Nostalgic
CHAPTER 37 Alexius, son of Euphemianus
CHAPTER 38 (The Sioux Indians)
CHAPTER 39 (The violent garden)
CHAPTER 40 The stones
CHAPTER 41 Bernard
CHAPTER 42 Paradise regained
CHAPTER 43 No one's place
CHAPTER 44 Hu Tzi
CHAPTER 45 Io Island
CHAPTER 46 Lost Island
CHAPTER 47 Pier Paolo Pasolini
CHAPTER 48 The State of Acre
CHAPTER 49 Apiridaeza
CHAPTER 50 List of Paradises
CHAPTER 51 Elisha's Shadow
CHAPTER 52 In overscheyt
CHAPTER 53 The Sacred Wood
CHAPTER 54 Dance
CHAPTER 55 Moments of Paradise
CHAPTER 56 The Nose
CHAPTER 57 The Fountain of Youth
CHAPTER 58 De Paradiso voluptatis
CHAPTER 59 Eanus
CHAPTER 60 Eustachius ante Placidus vocabatur. . .
CHAPTER 61 De Antiquissima
CHAPTER 62 The Rocks of Liu Liang
CHAPTER 63 Apocatastasis
CHAPTER 64 Ich horte ein wazzer diezen
CHAPTER 65 The Good Labourer
CHAPTER 66 On Castration
CHAPTER 67 Hortus conclusus
CHAPTER 68 On the Sonder Waeromme
CHAPTER 69 On Advent
CHAPTER 70 Guerin's Wife
CHAPTER 71 Very Short Chapter
CHAPTER 72 Tiphys
CHAPTER 73 Asgard
CHAPTER 74 Joppa
CHAPTER 75 The Paradisical Voice
CHAPTER 76 Christmas
CHAPTER 77 The red milk
CHAPTER 78 Dishevelled
CHAPTER 79 (Pont Royal)
CHAPTER 80 Exules fili Evae
CHAPTER 81 Saturn's Ladder
CHAPTER 82 Frater Lucius
CHAPTER 2 A scene deleted from the beginning of the novel All the World's Mornings
CHAPTER 3 De vita beata
CHAPTER 4 De situ terrae sanctae
CHAPTER 5 The Woman of Boeges
CHAPTER 6 Zeitlose
CHAPTER 7 Earthly odour
CHAPTER 8 The fabulous embrace
CHAPTER 9 The Story of the Governor of the Omi Province
CHAPTER 10 The tough difference
CHAPTER 11 The yellow woman reading
CHAPTER 12 Immeditatus
CHAPTER 13 Impossible Resemblance
CHAPTER 14 Spitting images
CHAPTER 15 Julia the Elder
CHAPTER 16 (The Lost)
CHAPTER 17 Sand and Sandeau
CHAPTER 18 The cypress abode
CHAPTER 19 Miso soup
CHAPTER 20 (Natasha Rostova recognizing herself in the shadow)
CHAPTER 21 The Tiber
CHAPTER 22 The unrecognizable gardener
CHAPTER 23 On the nudity of Marie d'Enghein
CHAPTER 24 Le Beau Dunois
CHAPTER 25 De similitudine carnis
CHAPTER 26 Rue Lenine
CHAPTER 27 The inner world
CHAPTER 28 Gutter meum
CHAPTER 29 Out of the Body Experience
CHAPTER 30 The Guerres
CHAPTER 31 Medusa
CHAPTER 32 Time and The Novel
CHAPTER 33 Disturbing resemblances eliciting anxious conversations
CHAPTER 34 Narcissus the Hunter
CHAPTER 35 The Athens Pig
CHAPTER 36 Ulysses the Nostalgic
CHAPTER 37 Alexius, son of Euphemianus
CHAPTER 38 (The Sioux Indians)
CHAPTER 39 (The violent garden)
CHAPTER 40 The stones
CHAPTER 41 Bernard
CHAPTER 42 Paradise regained
CHAPTER 43 No one's place
CHAPTER 44 Hu Tzi
CHAPTER 45 Io Island
CHAPTER 46 Lost Island
CHAPTER 47 Pier Paolo Pasolini
CHAPTER 48 The State of Acre
CHAPTER 49 Apiridaeza
CHAPTER 50 List of Paradises
CHAPTER 51 Elisha's Shadow
CHAPTER 52 In overscheyt
CHAPTER 53 The Sacred Wood
CHAPTER 54 Dance
CHAPTER 55 Moments of Paradise
CHAPTER 56 The Nose
CHAPTER 57 The Fountain of Youth
CHAPTER 58 De Paradiso voluptatis
CHAPTER 59 Eanus
CHAPTER 60 Eustachius ante Placidus vocabatur. . .
CHAPTER 61 De Antiquissima
CHAPTER 62 The Rocks of Liu Liang
CHAPTER 63 Apocatastasis
CHAPTER 64 Ich horte ein wazzer diezen
CHAPTER 65 The Good Labourer
CHAPTER 66 On Castration
CHAPTER 67 Hortus conclusus
CHAPTER 68 On the Sonder Waeromme
CHAPTER 69 On Advent
CHAPTER 70 Guerin's Wife
CHAPTER 71 Very Short Chapter
CHAPTER 72 Tiphys
CHAPTER 73 Asgard
CHAPTER 74 Joppa
CHAPTER 75 The Paradisical Voice
CHAPTER 76 Christmas
CHAPTER 77 The red milk
CHAPTER 78 Dishevelled
CHAPTER 79 (Pont Royal)
CHAPTER 80 Exules fili Evae
CHAPTER 81 Saturn's Ladder
CHAPTER 82 Frater Lucius