When Romanian studies professor Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston died in 2005 (“Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston,” 8 April 2005), she left a lot of literature unfinished, among it not one, but two books on E.M. Cioran: one a critical biography, the other a personal memoir of their friendship. As I had been anticipating at least the biography for some time when I heard of her death, I was crestfallen.

It turns out that what she had completed was sufficiently far along that a book will come of it. Searching for Cioran will be released in Fall 2008 according to publisher Indiana State University Press, January 2009 according to Amazon.com. The book lists her husband as the editor so I presume that he gathered together what there was and did his best to make a book of it. I also imagine that it will be diptych in that it will be both the critical biography and memoir published together. In such a thin field, even an uncompleted work will be a real addition.