Andrew Hussey

Death of an Author

The 7th Function of Language

By

Harvill Secker 390pp £16.99 order from our bookshop

This book begins with a real event that took place on rue des Ecoles in Paris on 25 February 1980 at around half past three in the afternoon. After a good lunch, the distinguished philosopher and critic Roland Barthes was on his way back to his office when he walked into the path of a laundry van. He was severely injured and taken to the nearby hospital of Pitié-Salpêtrière, where he died a month later. He was sixty-four years old and still at the height of his powers and fame. The commonly accepted opinion was that he had been the victim of a random accident.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • He weeps by the side of the ocean, He weeps on the top of the hill; He purchases pancakes and lotion, And chocolate… ,
    • 'Half-way through The Conquest of Water I felt as if I had been subjected to the literary equivalent of excessive c… ,
    • 'Volume five, then, but still no end in sight. Sandbrook is clearly enjoying himself so much he can’t bear the seri… ,
    • 'By the end of the book something so weighty, stylish and impressive has been built up that one feels far nearer to… ,
    • 'Her ensuing psychotic episode is described so convincingly ... that the reader will wonder if Dobrakovová did not… ,
    • 'The perspectives complement and contest one another, amounting to a glorious, atmospheric set of ventriloquisms.'… ,
    • RT : I reviewed The Testaments for . I will not be taking any questions at this time. ,
    Follow Us