What happens when philosophy and literature meet? What is at stake when the text of a so-called single author begins to speak in two languages, now the language of theoretical reflection, now the language of narrative fiction And what relation does writing have to the limit that defines it but, by exposing it to the limitlessness that lies beyond it, also threatens its very possibility? These are some of the questions raised by three of the most provocative and influential French writers of the twentieth century: Georges Bataille, Pierre Klossowski, and Maurice Blanchot. Examining all three together for the first time, this pioneering study explores their response to a double challenge: that of assuming the burden of philosophy while at the same time affirming the shadows, spirits, an spectres that go under the name of literature.