'Nobody knows how to write'. Thus opens this carefully nuanced and accessible collection of essays by one the most important writer-philosophers of the twentieth century, Jean-Fran ois Lyotard (1924-1998). First published in French, in 1991 as Lectures d'enfance, and investigating Lyotard's idea of infantia, or, the infancy of thought that resists all forms of development, be it human or technological, these essays have never been printed as a collection in English.

Each essay responds to works by writers and thinkers who are central to cultural modernism, such as James Joyce; Franz Kafka; Hannah Arendt; Jean-Paul Sartre; and Sigmund Freud. Although published between 1986 and 1991 in several different English publications, the pieces are no longer in print and have been given scant critical attention as a cohesive body of thought. This volume - with a new introduction and afterword by Robert Harvey and Kiff Bamford - contextualises Lyotard's thought and demonstrates his continued relevance today.