Impatient Life A Memoir

In the classic tradition of the philosopher-activist, Daniel Bensaïd tells the story of a life deeply entwined with the history of both the French and the international Left. From his family bistro in a staunchly red neighborhood of Toulouse to the founding of the Jeunesses communistes revolutionnaires in the 1960s, from the joyous explosion of May 1968 to the painful experience of defeat in Latin America, from the re-reading of Marx to the “Marrano” trail, Bensaïd relates a life of ideological and practical struggle in which he unflinchingly sought to understand capitalism without ever succumbing to its temptations.

"France’s leading Marxist public intellectual." Tariq Ali

"Daniel’s death is like a wound, not a sadness. A loss which leaves us heavier. However, this weight is the opposite of a burden; it is a message composed, not with words, but with decisions and acts and injuries." John Berger

"Daniel Bensaïd was my ‘distant companion’ ... With his disappearance, the intellectual, activist, political, and what we might call, even though the adjective is today obscure in meaning, ‘revolutionary’ world has changed." Alain Badiou

The turbulent story of the radical Left in the eloquent words of one of its foremost leaders

Daniel Bensaïd (1946–2010) was a founding member of the Ligue Communiste and a leader for many years of the Fourth International as well as one of the most well-known Marxist philosophers in France. His many books include Walter Benjamin, sentinelle messianique; Jeanne de guerre lasse; Eloge de la politique profane; and Marx for Our Times.

Daniel Bensaïd (1946–2010) was a founder member of the Ligue Communiste and a leader for many years of the Fourth International. His many books include Walter Benjamin, sentinelle messianique; Jeanne de guerre lasse; Marx l’intempestif; and Marx for Our Times.Tariq Ali is a writer and filmmaker. He has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics—including Pirates of the Caribbean, Bush in Babylon, The Clash of Fundamentalisms and The Obama Syndrome—as well as five novels in his Islam Quintet series and scripts for the stage and screen. He is an editor of the New Left Review and lives in London.