Camera Lucida

Of all his works it is the most accessible in language and the most revealing about the author. And effortlessly, as if in passing, his reflections on photography raise questions and doubts which will permanently affect the vision of the reader

Of all his works it is the most accessible in language and the most revealing about the author. And effortlessly, as if in passing, his reflections on photography raise questions and doubts which will permanently affect the vision of the reader

Roland Barthes' final book - less a critical essay than a suite of valedictory meditations - is his most beautiful, and most painful

Profoundly shaped the way the medium is regarded

I am moved by the sense of discovery in Camera Lucida , by the glimpse of a return to a lost world

Roland Barthes was born in 1915 and studied French literature and classics at the University of Paris. After teaching French at universities in Romania and Egypt, he joined the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, where he devoted himself to research in sociology and lexicology. He was a professor at the College de France until his death in 1980.