A collection of his diary reflections, the book starts in 1925, when he was 20 years old, and ends at his death in 1961. The typewritten manuscript was found in the bedside table of his New York apartment after Hammarskjöld's death in the Congo. As van Dusen writes: "His last night had been spent in the residency of Sture Linner (), head of the United Nations mission to the Congo. He left there the copy of the German original of Ich und Du (I and Thou) presented to him by Martin Buber and the first dozen pages of his translation into Swedish...Beside the bed was the cherished copy of Thomas a Kempis' "The Imitation of Christ" which was always on the table of his New York City apartment next to his bed where the manuscript of "Markings" was found."