In this innovative reimagining of Plato's Republic, one of philosophy's best known texts, Alain Badiou removes all references specific to ancient Greek society and modernizes the work's cultural ties. Socrates and his companions are now joined by Beckett, Pessoa, Freud, and Hegel, among others, demonstrating that true philosophy endures, always ready to absorb new horizons without changing its essence. Badiou's interlocutors also do much more than merely agree with Socrates. They challenge him and put him on the spot, recreating the thrill of thought and debate in motion. In this work of dramatic scholarship and philosophy, we encounter a modern version of Plato's text that is alive, stimulating, and directly relevant to our own time.

Alain Badiou is emeritus professor of philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. One of the most well-known philosophers of our time, he is also a novelist, playwright, and political activist. He is the author of The Incident at Antioch/L'Incident d'Antioche: A Tragedy in Three Acts/Tragédie en trois actes.

Kenneth Reinhard is associate professor of English and comparative literature at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the coauthor of The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology and After Oedipus: Shakespeare in Psychoanalysis.

Susan Spitzer is a frequent translator of Badiou's works, most recently, Five Lessons on Wagner, and the play, The Incident at Antioch.

What Badiou's translation of Plato leaves us with is a resounding passion for the truth. It leaves us with a rare sense that politics can once again be associated with courage and justice, and that we have an agency at our disposal that comes in the passionate work of bringing the idea of equality (communism) into existence.

John Vignaux Smyth:

[An] amusing, erudite, and intelligent book.

A must read for students of Badiou.

A highly entertaining intellectual exercise.

A lively rendering.... Those familiar with Plato's Republic will still hear Plato's voice in this engaging rendition.

Slavoj ¿i¿ek, author of Living in the End:

Badiou's translation of Plato follows the ancient habit of pre-copyright times: it freely changes the original to make it fit contemporary conditions. So instead of sophists, we get corrupted journalists; instead of soul, we get the subject; and instead of Plato's critique of democracy, we get... well, a critique of today's democracy. The result is a resounding triumph: Plato comes fully alive as our contemporary, as someone who directly addresses our issues. This, not aseptic scholarly work, is the mark of true fidelity to our past.

Simon Critchley, New School for Social Research:

Here is something really remarkable: a complete reimagining of the founding text of philosophy. This book calls itself a hyper-translation, but it is also a repetition with a difference: an utterly contemporary transposition—and even sublimation—of Plato's Republic. It is always our task to breathe life into the ancients. They feed on our blood. Badiou shows himself a master of vampirism.

Eleanor Kaufman, University of California, Los Angeles:

The hypertranslation serves on one level as a readable rewriting of one of Plato's most significant texts while on another it serves as a novel articulation of Badiou's consistent interests and sources of inspiration.