but it does not seem that anyone has devoted courses solely to
Guattari. So now that you mention it to me it is the time to begin
doing so!GM:You already told me that the situation in French publishing is one of
excessive conformism. However, were you ever contacted by any French
presses to have the French translation of your book?Bifo:No, and I didn’t expect to either. Not this book. To go back to
the Italian situation, there is something else that is worth saying: in
France, Guattari, and even Deleuze in his final years, are regarded as a
thing of the past, as something from which to be liberated, a residue
from the Seventies which irritates those who would like to forget their
past, who in fact have erased their past. In Italy, instead, Guattari is
considered the friend of the terrorists. He’s still the one who helped me
first and Antonio Negri later. In 1977, the friendship between Guattari
and me was considered the collaboration between two international
terrorists ... And this image of Guattari as the friend of terrorists is
what was created by the Italian press. Then, with the presence of
Antonio Negri in the 1980s, he was done for. So, if today you mention
Guattari to an Italian journalist, but also to a university professor, they
will answer, ‘Sure, Antonio’s friend’, and Antonio’s name is actually an
insult. This is very important in order to understand the Italian recep-
tion of Guattari.GM:To move on from publishing to some other questions, I found the book
to be quite beautiful precisely because it combines a narrative with concepts,
and I wondered if you had followed any models, philosophical or literary,
in writing your book. That is, how did you find its tone, halfway between
an essay and a story? Did you have any texts in mind, any literary or philo-
sophical models?Bifo:Well, on the philosophical level and somewhat stylistically, I
refer to the introduction of What Is Philosophy?,Deleuze and Guattari’s
final book, and to their discussion of friendship, which is sort of why I
decided to write it in this way. And I would also say that I tried to
return a bit to an idea of philosophy as an existential adventure that,
even if from a linguistic and narrative perspective it might seem incon-
gruous, I originally found in William Burroughs’s characters, which
were very well loved by Deleuze and Guattari, with their idea of the
incarnation of the concept, the concept of existence, of suffering, of144 Thought, Friendship and Visionary Cartography9780230_221192_14_inte.pdf 10/3/08 11:37 AM Page 144