If you put a gun to my head — not that you would — and asked me whom I’d consider the greatest writer of the 20th century — not that asking my opinion is worth risking a police encounter — I’d say, ‘That’s easy, put the gun down. Maurice Blanchot.’ He’s both my favorite fiction writer and my favorite writer of what’s alternately dubbed philosophy or language theory. His ‘Death Sentence’ is either my favorite novel of all time, or it’s tied for favorite with Sade’s ‘120 Days of Sodom.’ To me, Blanchot is to the written text as Bresson is to the captured image, which is to say not so much the greatest at his chosen medium — obviously a ridiculous proposition — as he is an artist as singular, ruthless, pure, and infested with belief in the abilities of language as anyone who has ever tried their hand at writing. —Dennis Cooper

Some details about Dennis Cooper’s weekend:

I went to that American Writers Festival I mentioned, intending to hit a lot of the events. But I went to see the Peter Sotos (interviewed by Bruce Benderson) event and wound up just hanging out with them and Laurence Viallet of Editions Desordres and crew, which was great. Bruce is an old friend, but I’d never spent time with Peter before, and he’s a really nice guy. I also got to meet and talk to Gaspar Noe, who knows Peter, which was a thrill because, as you know, I’m a huge admirer of his films. —Dennis Cooper

From all this it would appear that Dennis Cooper is a thorough francophile.