In Marx's Literary Style the Venezuelan poet and philosopher Ludovico Silva argues that much
of the confusion around Marx's work results from a failure to understand his literary mode of
expression. Through meticulous readings of key passages in Marx's oeuvre Silva isolates the
key elements of his style: his search for an architectonic unity at the level of the text his
capacity to express himself dialectically at the level of the sentence and above all his
great gift for metaphor. Silva's unique sensitivity to Marx's literary choices allows him to
illuminate a number of terms that have been persistently and fatefully misunderstood by many
of Marx's most influential readers including alienation reflection and base and
superstructure. At the heart of Silva's book is his contention that we we cannot hope to
understand Marx if we treat him as a scientist a philosopher or a literary writer when he
was in fact all three at once. Originally published in 1971 this is a key work by one of the
most important Latin American Marxists of the twentieth century. This edition which marks the
first appearance of one of Silva's works in English features an introduction by Alberto
Toscano.
