Sollers's vision of the world is succinctly expressed: “To write and to live are one and the same.” It is difficult to know much about Philippe Sollers without immersing oneself in his work. A writer's existence is by definition a time bomb; ultimately everything—his childhood, the people who influenced him, his loves, his friendships, his intimate relations, his sorrows and his little secrets, the benevolent acts he does not advertise, his successes and failures, his tactics and strategies—comes out in his books. The documentary evidence is there, neither rare nor hidden. The sideshow society in which we live enjoys imposing upon the writer an identity not necessarily his. Philippe Sollers established his predominant position in French literary and intellectual life some time ago. He began by writing conventional fiction, then rapidly joined the avant-garde with the appearance of the theoretical group «Tel Quel», of which he was the central motivating figure, and went on to write best-sellers, including Femmes, Portrait du joueur, Le Cœur absolu, La Guerre du goût, Dictionnaire amoureux de Venise and, more recently, Une vie divine. His career has been checkered, his path sinuous and full of spectacular rectifications. He has always refused to repent, maintaining the absolute and unassailable liberty of literature. Convinced of the subversive power of inspiration, he calls the system that governs us “the Adversary” because it takes things and individuals at face value and fails to value humanity's true treasures of language and thought.