This book has precedence and an audience in visual arts, critical studies, visual studies and esthetics but also draws on a variety of interdisciplinary texts and topics across the humanities, in literature, poetry and philosophy making it interesting to a wider audience.

This collective book deals with literary translation, be it the very experience of translating or its theory. "Literature" is considered here as a critical expression of artistic worth and a specific view on languages, both of which reveal not only the formal but also the cultural and political stakes of translation.

These 288 letters span the period between Montesquieu's return from travelling and the completion of L'Esprit des lois. They evoke the Parisian literary and scientific scene, news of politics and wars, and, of course, Montesquieu's major works. The writer also reveals himself to be an attentive father and shrewd proprietor.

Using examples drawn from Quebecois, Belgian, Caribbean and African literature, this volume examines the forms and challenges of pastiche, parody and rewriting in the iconic texts of the contemporary literary scene, which they help to explain.