Les Fictions du journal littéraire : Paul Léautaud, Jean Malaquais, Renaud Camus

A writer’s diary speaks of the world, often doing so through the words of others, calling attention to the presence within him of what has already been said, but which he makes his own. It is a paradoxical situation in which the writing process reveals other voices as it unfolds, while at the same time cultivating the illusion of excluding them, in a denial of the dialogic nature of all speech. Acknowledging within itself the occasional presence of other discourses, the diary charts complex, shifting boundaries, like imaginary maps sketching out the illusion of a private territory where the fiction of the self can unfold. This essay explores the self-portraits drawn in the diaries of three 20th century writers : Paul Léautaud, Jean Malaquais and Renaud Camus. It describes the intriguing interplay of language that suggests the circumscribed presence of the other, working both as a mask and as a marker of a dynamic undercurrent of dialogue.