L’agonie gravée

Réflexions sur « Cytomégalovirus », le journal d’hospitalisation d’Hervé Guibert.

Abstract

Hervé Guibert, renowned for his photographic work and novels that dominated the Francophone press in the 1990s, is a seminal figure in contemporary international literature. Strongly influenced by his personal experiences, his writing sits at the intersection of the novelistic, autofictional, and autobiographical genres. Although much critical scholarship has been devoted to his oeuvre, this contribution aims to examine a relatively overlooked text, Cytomegalovirus: A Hospitalization Diary. Written during a twenty-day hospital stay due to AIDS, this text deals with the impact of the medical environment on the daily life of the patient. Guibert describes his hospitalization with a biting style, oscillating between hope and despair.
Cytomegalovirus is Guibert’s final work, in which writing becomes an essential form of fight in the face of the pain of illness. In the deathly environment of the hospital, particularly in the ward dedicated to AIDS patients, literary writing becomes the means by which the author transcends his experience and immortalizes it in a literary tomb.