From today’s perspective, Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) comes across as one of the most productive and exhilarating talents in twentieth-century art. He continues to be both an inspiring and provocative figure not only for his wide-ranging virtuosity as a linguist, writer, journalist, and film-maker but also on account of the themes that he addressed. In modern-day Europe with all its levelling processes, regulations, and a hypocrisy protected by the code of political correctness, the loss of his voice is keenly felt. Pasolini never simply glorified the ancient ways of isolated regions and decried progress; rather, by adopting both extremes, he created an all-embracing poetics of experimental thinking. Hans Ulrich Reck’s book shows the relevance of his work today: that Pasolini was proved bitterly right in so many things is an expression of his far-sightedness in not reading the hidden signs of his time in terms of “grand theses” and “narratives”. [publisher's note]