Below is an excerpt from Leslie Kaplan's 1982 fiction of the French factory revolts. For more on the book, recently released in an English edition (translated by Julie Carr and Jennifer Pap), see Jason E. Smith's review in our special summer issue, 1968 Now.

You go to a factory that makes headlights. It’s in a neighborhood just

outside the center, a little street. At last you’ve arrived. The factory

is there.

You see it, it’s in the courtyard, a cadaver without weight. It’s there, it

doesn’t move. Factory mass. You know it.

You are in front, in the courtyard, you think, you know it.