Mourning Diary

Intimate and deeply moving, Mourning Diary is a profound study of grief and solitude, drawn from the lost diary of influential philosopher Roland Barthes.

The day after his mother's death in October 1977, 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, provide a unique glimpse into the themes Barthes explored throughout his work. Behind the brilliant mind hailed by Susan Sontag as "the most consistently intelligent, important, and useful literary critic to have emerged anywhere" lay a deeply sensitive man who cherished his mother with a devotion unknown even to his closest friends. Mourning Diary offers an intimate portrait of loss and loneliness from one of the 20th century's greatest thinkers.