E.M. Cioran was a Romanian-born French writer who rubbed shoulders with Sartre and Camus in the cafes of Paris, but who may have more in common with Spanish writer Miguel Unamuno.
Fitting then is our return to Cioran's unpublished notebook written during one of his seasonal vacations to Ibiza, an archipelago island of Spain.
Cioran's love for Spain and the Spanish temperament can be seen repeatedly in his work, his references, and his style. Near worshipful of Miguel Unamuno's “On the Tragic Sense of Life,” Saint Teresa of Avila and Cervantes, Cioran has a deep affinity for the charecteristcally Spanish melancholy and madness.
Like a Rosetta Stone to Cioran's other, more surgical prose, which he perhaps hides behind, this Notebook reveals a more relaxed, intimate, raw and fragile side to Cioran.
The Notebook from Talamanca by E.M. Cioran, is now available for the first time in this English translation (2017)