<DIV><DIV><DIV><P>A major discovery: The lost diary of a great mind&#8212;and an intimate, deeply moving study of grief</B><BR><BR>The day after his mother&#8217;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&#8217;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, &#8220;the most consistently intelligent, important, and useful literary critic to have emerged anywhere&#8221; (Susan Sontag), lay a deeply sensitive man who cherished his mother with a devotion unknown even to his closest friends.</P></DIV></DIV></DIV>