Introduction

Roland Barthes's article "Deliberation" constituted his only substantial, published discussion of the journal intime, as well as the only publication of his diaries in his lifetime. Deliberation', which first appeared in Tel Quel in the winter of 1979, begins uncertainly. Testing the waters, Deliberation proceeds to reproduce a number of entries from Barthes's diaries, but these are followed by remarks which quickly cast doubt upon the worth of the intimate observations. Barthes died several months after the appearance of 'Deliberation'. The years since then have revealed that the short, dismissive text was concealing a fondness for diary-writing. The posthumous publication in 1985 of Incidents brought to light an intimate journal entitled 'Soirées de Paris' which covered August and September 1979, and which Barthes had begun immediately after sending 'Deliberation' to Tel Quel. The arrival in 2015 of Tiphaine Samoyault's definitive biography of Barthes revealed that further diaries lie in the archive, unpublished and largely unseen.