Mourning Diary

“A belated and unexpected gift.”—The London Review of Books

"This book's unvarnished quality is the source of its wrecking cumulative power. Barthes's ironic intellect, apparent everywhere in his many books, is wrapped here around his sore and nakedly beating heart . . . not his finest work, but it is his most ardent and approachable. Barthes for Beginners, cynics may label it. I prefer to think of it as something else: the literary equivalent of an acoustic recording, a welcome, belated, stripped-down addition to his oeuvre . . . a slender volume that one wants to linger over, to devour slowly."—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“A writer whose books of criticism and personal musings must be admired as serious and beautiful works of the imagination.”—Edmund White  

“Though Barthes left behind disciples, there can be no replacing him; his brilliance has a wavelength all its own.”—John Updike

"These penseìües on the process of grieving the loss of a mother are an invitation to eavesdrop on a densely qualified (in the finest sense) rational mind touched by eternal loss. While continuing his life work, the great French cultural critic Barthes kept notes of sadness and self-reflection on slips of paper. This fragmentary book begins the night after his mother's death; informing it all is the presence of absence. Although conflicted by the very process of making literature from grief, Barthes contemplates such day-to-day, unexpected spells of sadness as living in an empty apartment; how the role reversal of caring for a dying parent affected him; the larger mysteries of time; and his own generalized mental state ('Not even the desire to commit suicide'). Compiler and annotator Leíügeris to be commended, as is redoubtable translator Howard, who, in a nostalgic afterword, describes both his experience with Barthes's mother, Henriette, and the relative merits of the craft of rendering any book into another language. This volume is both a window into the soul of a philosopher and a unique contribution to the inspirational literature of the adult child left behind."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)