Terror of the Image: Maurice Blanchot and Mohammed Dib in Conversation

This essay sets up the scene of a conversation between Maurice Blanchot and Mohammed Dib—one of the most prominent writers of the twentieth century, hailing from Algeria and writing in French—through sustained reflections on the interplay between the imaginary, terror and chance. Beginning with highlighting Blanchot’s distinctions between dialogue and conversation, as well as his notion of the imaginary, the essay moves to an interlaced reading of Blanchot’s work and Dib’s short story, “Une partie de dés” [“A Game of Dice”] about a thwarted terrorist assassination attempt.