[10/15/26] Collobert, Danielle: Notebooks, 1956-1978

Litmus Press, paperback

Translated by Jérémy Victor Robert & Norma Cole

Publication Date: October 15, 2026

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Born into a Breton family active in the Resistance during the Second World War, Danielle Collobert moved to Paris at the age of 19. There, she took her own life in the summer of 1978. These notebooks, spanning a 22-year period from 1956 to 1978, were found in her possession at the time of her death.

In Danielle Collobert’s Notebooks the urgency of her writing is accompanied by the weight of hindsight—that we know how it ends—and yet it is not stifled by morbidity. Instead, the intensity and integrity of her struggles rise to the surface. Collobert’s questions—of presence in the world, of politics and intimacy—are constantly recovered from the blur of experience. Collobert moves towards and away in a feverish attempt to connect, stay connected—whether in her personal encounters, moments of activism or writing—and though she ultimately chooses death, there is enough life in her writing to carry on: “the hum of life all around… I open / and I close.”

Note on the Second Edition: Danielle Collobert’s Notebooks 1956–1978 were published in 2003 by Litmus Press in Norma Cole’s translation. In 2005, P.O.L included new material from Collobert’s notebooks in Œuvres II. This second edition thus contains two additional sections: “Indonesia, Dec. 70–Jan. 71,” translated by Norma Cole, and “Scattered fragments,” translated by Jérémy Victor Robert. Featuring extensive and insightful endnotes, the Notebooks appear in their entirety for the first time.