num_pages: 272
description: A major discovery: The lost diary of a great mindand 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.
language: English
title: Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977–September 15, 1979
publisher: Hill and Wang