I ve never kept a journal, Roland Barthes declared in 1979, or, rather, I ve never known if I should keep one . The form itself, he continued, was inferior and unnecessary, a minor mania of writing . Barthes died months making this statement, and the years since then have revealed that he had actually been concealing a fondness for diary-writing. The publication in 1985 of Incidents brought to light an intimate journal entitled Soirees de Paris, while 2009 saw the appearance of two much longer diaries kept by Barthes following the death of his mother in 1977 and during a trip to...