SOURCE: Calvet, Louis-Jean. “The ‘After-Death.’” In Roland Barthes: A Biography, translated by Sarah Wykes, pp. 256-67. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Polity Press, 1994.

In the following excerpt, originally published in French in 1990, Calvet examines works by Barthes published after his death and summarizes his intellectual and activist legacy.

After his death, there were dozens of people who claimed that they had been Barthes's best friend, the person who was closest and dearest to him. Dozens of people sent letters of condolence to Michel Salzedo. The fact that there were so many is proof of the pretension of these self-proclaimed friends, some of whom had probably been in the ‘pains-in-the-neck’ category. It is also symptomatic of Barthes's lifestyle, his ability to compartmentalize his life and of his preference for seeing people on a one-to-one basis, which meant that all his friends were under the impression that their relationship with him was...