Walter Benjamin is now regarded as one of the greatest literary critics of the 20th century. An outsider in Hitler's Europe, he chose an infamously futile death on the Spanish border in 1940 - at which point he was little known outside his native Germany, where he had been among the first to champion Kafka then Brecht. This collection of essays includes his most famous work, and comprises an eloquent testament to his ingenuity and honesty.