The Difficulty of Being

In The Difficulty of Being, Jean Cocteau opens the doors to his inner world, weaving together personal reflections, aphorisms, and confessions in luminous, poetic prose. With the sensitivity of an artist and the clarity of a witness to his time, Cocteau confronts the paradoxes of existence: the fragility and strength of human nature, the struggle of living and creating, the tension between reality and dream.
Neither a strict autobiography nor a conventional essay, the book is instead a portrait of the soul—oscillating between philosophical meditation, intimate diary, and artistic manifesto. Cocteau reflects on the role of the artist, on art as a means of survival, and on the mystery of beauty that, while defying reason, remains his guiding force.
At once enigmatic and transparent, The Difficulty of Being invites the reader to contemplate both the drama and the enchantment of existence through the visionary gaze of one of the twentieth century’s most original spirits.