In this collection of essays and epigrams, E.M. Cioran gives us portraits and evaluations—which he calls "admirations"—of Samuel Beckett, Jorge Luis Borges, F. Scott Fitzgerald, the poet Paul Valery, and Mircea Eliade, among others. In alternating sections of aphorisms—his "anathemas"—he delivers insights on such topics as solitude, flattery, vanity, friendship, insomnia, music, mortality, God, and the lure of disillusion.
Born in Romania in 1911, E. M. Cioran moved to Paris when he was 26 and lived there until his death in 1995. A maverick and iconoclast, he has been called "the last worthy disciple of Nietzsche" as well as a brilliant aphorist and stylist. His other books include Drawn and Quartered, A Short History of Decay, The Temptation to Exist, and The Trouble with Being Born, all available from Arcade.
"E. M. Cioran is superb... Sardonic, even cynical, Mr. Cioran rivals his idol, Satan, in the elegance of his address and the undermining fluency of his thought." - Edmund White
"The essay on F. Scott Fitzgerald is particularly extraordinary... Other essays are of equal grace and interest, as are the aphorisms." - Thomas McGonigle, Washington Post Book World
"A brilliant and original exponent of a rare genre, the philosophical essay. Quite apart from the inherent satisfaction of encountering a genuine style, Cioran offers a form of intellectual experience that helps to balance the preoccupations of an uneasy time.. Once read, Cioran cannot fail to provoke reaction." - NYT Book Review
