Emil Cioran

Joseph Acquisto (University of Vermont)
Download PDF Add to Bookshelf Tweet Report an Error

E. M. Cioran was a Romanian-born essayist and aphorist living in Paris and writing in French from the age of twenty-six. Upon the publication of his first book in French, Précis de decomposition (A Short History of Decay), Cioran was hailed by Maurice Nadeau in Combat as “le prophète des temps concentrationaires et du suicide collectif [. . .] le porteur [. . .] de la mauvaise nouvelle” [“the prophet of the era of concentration camps and collective suicide [. . .] the bringer of [. . .] bad news”]. While his writings are suffused with philosophical themes, Cioran often resisted the label of philosopher, preferring an unsystematic and fragmentary approach to …

2281 words

Citation: Acquisto, Joseph. "Emil Cioran". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 February 2009 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=12517, accessed 08 December 2024.]

12517 Emil Cioran 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.