Fundamental groups of singular quasi-projective varieties

We express, under appropriate conditions, the fundamental group of a singular complex quasi-projective variety as a quotient of the fundamental group of a general hyperplane section, using a generic pencil. The subgroup by which the quotient is taken is described with the help of the monodromies around the exceptional hyperplanes of the pencil. This is a new generalization of the classical Zariski–van Kampen theorem on curves.