Le Contre-ciel

René Daumal's Le Contre-Ciel is a collection of poems about death; not a death that ends life but a death that begins it.
For this early 20th century French poet-philosopher, life, in its most dynamic sense, can only be experienced after the facade of self-identity has been systematically negated through a kind of metaphysical suicide. In Le Contre-Ciel, Daumal invites us, his readers, to go through this process of regeneration-through-negation with him in order to revive in ourselves a knowledge and understanding of our primordial sources.