Omul fără biografie.

Anca Visdei, Cioran ou le gai désespoir (L’Archipel, Paris, 2025)

Abstract

This review examines Anca Visdei’s Cioran ou le gai désespoir (L’Archipel, 2025), an ambitious biographical reconstruction of Emil Cioran, a thinker who consistently resisted biographical coherence. Approaching Cioran as an “individual without biography”, the review analyses the tension between life, work, and negation that structures both Cioran’s writing and Visdei’s eclectic narrative method. While acknowledging the book’s narrative vitality, rich documentation, and contextual insight, the review questions the legitimacy and limits of biographical exposure, particularly where the organic and sensational risk overshadowing Cioran’s fundamentally spiritual and anti-biographical ethos.