BOOK LAUNCH: The Blood Libel by Furio Jesi, Alberto Toscano with Esther Leslie

A book launch celebrating the first English edition of The Blood Libel by Furio Jesi, published by Wirklichkeit Books in 2026. Alberto Toscano, who introduced and translated the work, will be in conversation with Esther Leslie. Written in 1973, the book traces how the 1840 Damascus affair, an anti-Semitic accusation of ritual murder, became a racist myth, contrasting this with an analysis of modern fears projected onto the figure of the vampire. Jesi, an Italian scholar of myth and radical critic, uses his idea of the 'mythological machine' to examine how myth entangles with the politics of exclusion and domination.