Mourning Diary
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A major discovery: The lost diary of a great mind—and an intimate, deeply moving study of griefThe day after his mother’s death in October 1977, the influential philosopher Roland Barthes began a diary of mourning. Taking notes on index cards as was his habit, he reflected on a new solitude, on the ebb and flow of sadness, and on modern society’s dismissal of grief. These 330 cards, published here for the first time, prove a skeleton key to the themes he tackled throughout his work. Behind the unflagging mind, “the most consistently intelligent, important, and useful literary critic to have emerged anywhere” (Susan Sontag), lay a deeply sensitive man who cherished his mother with a devotion unknown even to his closest friends. The Barnes & Noble Review In 1977, when he was 61, the French philosopher Roland Barthes lost his mother after a prolonged illness. Barthes, by then a celebrated cultural critic, was on the verge of beginning several seminal book projects, including his classic Camera Lucida. Yet alongside this work, he took notes describing his mourning, and compiled a journal of 330 cards spanning two years. These cards, translated by Richard Howard and presented now in book form, are themselves a classic in the making. Whether we approach Barthes as an old intellectual companion, or open his work for the first time, they're not to be missed.
Editor's NoteForeword Nathalie Leger Leger, NathalieMourning Diary 1October 26, 1977-June 21, 1978Continuation of the Diary 153June 24, 1978-October 25, 1978Further Diary Pages 211October 25, 1978-September 15, 1979Some Undated Fragments 245Some Notes on Maman 249Afterword Richard Howard Howard, Richard 257
