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On the Heights of Despair by Cioran, Emile M is a philosophy book available to read on EtoBox.

What is On the Heights of Despair about?

"This book saved my life." So recalls the Romanian philosopher E.M. Cioran about a book that meditates on madness and death, the absurdity of existence, and the agony of consciousness. Cioran finds in our darkest fears not only reasons to continue living but also the comic, absurd humor in doing so. This early work by Cioran, whom Susan Sontag calls "the most distinguished figure in the tradition of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein," and Marc Fumaroli recently described as "a legend ... a master of French prose," portrays the philosophical mind in the crisis of its self-consuming fever. Born out of a terrible insomnia which Cioran characterizes as "a dizzying lucidity which would turn even paradise into hell," On the Heights of Despair was written in Romania in 1934 at the age of twenty-two. It presents us with the youthful Cioran, who described himself as "a Nietzsche still complete with his Zarathustra, his poses, his mystical clown's tricks, a whole circus of the heights." It also presents Cioran as a connoisseur of apocalypse, a theoretician of despair. For Cioran, writing and philosophy are closely related to physical suffering: both share the "lyrical virtues" that al

Who reads On the Heights of Despair?

Author

Cioran, Emile M

Publisher

The University of Chicago Press

Published

1991

Language

EN

ISBN

9780226106717

Category

philosophy

Subjects

Fiction, Philosophy, Humanities

Rating

4.21 / 5 (12 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14