Tristan Garcia's Form and Object is one of the most promising works of systematic philosophy to emerge from France since the turn of the century. Thanks to the heroic labour of translators Mark Allan Ohm and Jon Cogburn, we are able to publish an English version of this sophisticated book soon after its original appearance in French, late in the autumn of 2011.

A brief biographical introduction will help set the stage for the treatise itself. Garcia was born in Toulouse on 5 April 1981 to academic parents, but spent his formative years in Algeria. His philosophical originality blossomed early in a manner that led him to difficulties in the conservative French academic system; only later did Garcia find a handful of supporters, with Alain Badiou and Quentin Meillassoux most prominent among them. Later, he wrote his doctoral thesis under the formidable Sandra Laugier. Yet Garcia was already prominent as a literary figure before his public breakthrough as a philosopher. His 2008 debut novel La meilleure part des hommes won the prestigious Prix de Flore, and was later translated into English as Hate: A Romance.Since that celebrated entrance, Garcia's literary career has continued alongside his already prolific philosophical output, which began early with a little-known treatise L'Image, which appeared in 2007.In 2011 Garcia published Nous, animaux et humains, a surprising work on a surprising topic: Jeremy Bentham. That was followed just months later by Forme et objet, an astonishing achievement for a philosopher of just thirty years old.

Form and Object consists of two parts – or 'Books' as Garcia terms them. Book I (entitled 'Formally') might be described as an austere formal ontology of everything that is. The difficult terrain of this first book is made easier by Garcia's lucid, friendly, modest style of prose.