The Death of Roger Caillois

Extract

The death of Roger Caillois was vividly felt by writers and intellectuals all over the world. Not only in France, where his work in sociology, surrealism, criticism and literature brought him into the Académie française, but also in Japan, Brazil (whose Academy elected him to the seat previously occupied by André Malraux), in Argentina (where he counted numerous friends whose works and thought he had made known in Europe) his passing profoundly saddened literary and intellectual circles. Struck to the heart by his death also is the review Diogenes, which he founded and which has been formed by his perpetually needle-sharp curiosity, his creative imagination and his uncompromising precision.