Under that imprint, the series as of 2014 had expanded to include some 100 titles of illustrated texts on sophisticated topics in the areas of philosophy, politics, science and the arts.

The trilogy is epic in the scale of its locations – Vienna, Zagreb, Italy while its Quebecois protagonist's travels are ultimately fated to ominous disillusionment through his separatist terrorism.

However, Appignanesi's demanding and highly literate prose, in contrast to the generally well received approachable style of the illustrated texts, produced ambivalent reviews.

It has been described as "A tour of twentieth century European culture with inescapable echoes of Musil, Svevo and Kafka... A fretful, nervous brilliance playing over much of the book a piece of infinite fascination, the sort of novel which, for all its faults, jerks us out of our provincialism.

Its narrative builds up to Mishima's horrific ritual suicide by seppuku that accompanied his failed right-wing coup against the Japanese government.

Its tone is one of a dark magical realism and the protagonist's journey traverses a variety of grotesque and horrific, yet often lyrically rendered landscapes.

Penny Mountain, in the UK trade journal The Bookseller, wrote, "This formidable literary achievement […] In this fictional autobiography, Appignanesi .

It traces the history of an existential approach to the question of being through major thinkers such as Søren Kierkegaard, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus.

He curated the art exhibition, Encounters in Relational Geography: Dust, Ashes, Residua, featuring seven East European artists, at Open Space, Zentrum für Kunstprojekte, in Vienna, in 2010.

He presented another version of this exhibition, Raising Dust: Encounters in Relational Geography, with ten artists, at Calvert 22 Gallery, in London, in 2010 – 2011.

He was also co-curator, with Haim Bresheeth and Ali Nobil Ahmad, of a program of film exhibitions and related lectures, Winds of Change: Cinema in Muslim Societies, organized by Third Text and the Institute of Contemporary arts, London, in 2011.