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Cytomegalovirus

A Hospitalization Diary

Hervé Guibert author Clara Orban translator David Caron editor

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Fordham University Press

Published:1st Oct '15

Should be back in stock very soon

Cytomegalovirus cover

In Cytomegalovirus, Hervé Guibert offers a powerful autobiographical narrative that explores his hospitalization due to AIDS. The work is both poignant and reflective.

In Cytomegalovirus, Hervé Guibert presents a poignant and unvarnished autobiographical account of his experiences during hospitalization due to AIDS complications. This narrative is characterized by its clarity and emotional depth, capturing the essence of everyday moments that define his struggle with the disease. Guibert's writing is marked by an unsentimental yet deeply human perspective, allowing readers to connect with his journey on a personal level. His reflections on life and death intertwine with the mundane, highlighting the small victories amid overwhelming challenges.

As a prominent literary figure in France, Guibert's voice became increasingly significant in the discourse surrounding AIDS. By the time of his passing at thirty-six, he had authored around twenty novels, including notable works like To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life and The Compassion Protocol. Cytomegalovirus stands out as one of his final contributions, offering a raw and intimate glimpse into his reality as he faced the inevitable.

This new edition of Cytomegalovirus is enhanced with an Introduction and Afterword that situate Guibert's work within the broader context of the AIDS pandemic. It emphasizes the importance of recognizing the everyday aspects of terminal illness, making it relevant to contemporary readers. Guibert's narrative serves not only as a personal account but also as a reminder of the human experience amid suffering.

"Like Roland Barthes's Mourning Diary, Herve Guibert's hospitalization diary speaks with moonlit clarity about the threshold between life and death; with this heartbreaking and exemplary book Guibert has earned literary immortality." -- -Wayne Koestenbaum Distinguished Professor of English, CUNY "In this medical humanities classic, the vulnerable yet unabashedly confrontational Herve Guibert dissects the solitary hospital body that he and unknown others have become exam after exam, drug after drug, humiliation after humiliation, scream after scream. The writer's urgent will to live and poignant desire to invent relations inside and outside the hospital are nothing short of breathtaking." -- -Joao Biehl author of Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment and Will to Live: AIDS Therapies and the Politics of Survival "To read Guibert's journal of faltering vision is to teeter at the portal to many worlds. He stands, like Saramago, between light and darkness, right and wrong, life and death. What he sees and hears there-what he learns-is timeless. This book is a gift." -- -David France Director of How to Survive a Plague

ISBN: 9780823268573

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

96 pages