The 120 Days of Sodom

WINNER OF THE 2017 SCOTT MONCRIEFF PRIZE

A new translation of Sade’s most notorious, shocking and influential novel.

This disturbing but hugely important text has influenced countless individuals throughout history: Flaubert and Baudelaire both read Sade; the surrealists were obsessed with him; film-makers like Pasolini saw parallels with twentieth-century history in his writings; and feminists such as Andrea Dworkin and Angela Carter clashed over him. This new translation brings Sade’s provocative novel into Penguin Classics for the first time, and will reignite the debate around this most controversial of writers.

Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, better known as the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), was a French aristocrat and writer of philosophy-laden and often violent pornography, as well as some strictly philosophical works.

Will McMorran (translator) is a senior lecturer in French and comparative literature at Queen Mary, University of London.

Thomas Wynn (translator) is reader and director of research in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Durham University.