“A person truly dies, as Jorge Luis Borges said, only when the last person who knew him also dies. This is the case with Freud today, although there are still a few minimal individuals who, in their childhood, happened to get close to him. Freud spent his life writing and, although one day he destroyed texts and letters to complicate the work of his future biographers, he had such a passion for traces, archaeology, and memory that what has been lost is nothing compared to what has been preserved.

When it comes to such a destiny, the historian faces an overwhelming abundance of records and, consequently, an abundance of interpretations. After decades of apologetic comments and violent denunciations, it is extremely difficult to know who Sigmund Freud actually was. However, since the publication of the latest synthetic reference works, new records have opened to researchers, while the bulk of the correspondence is now accessible.

The founder of psychoanalysis is primarily a Viennese of the belle époque, a subject of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a heir of German and Jewish Enlightenment. As for psychoanalysis, it is the result of a collective endeavor, a romantic intellectual circle, within which Freud would allow his attraction to the irrational, the occult sciences to manifest freely, happily transforming his friends into enemies, Faust and Mephistopheles at the same time.

A thinker of modernity yet conservative in his political views, he will continue to act paradoxically regarding his work, always in the name of reason and Enlightenment. We see him here in his time, with his family, surrounded by his collections, his women, his children, his dogs, and we finally see him as a victim of pessimism in the face of the rise of extremism, consumed with doubts during his exile in London, where he would end his life. We also see him in our time feeding our questions with his personal doubts, his failures, his passions.

“Roudinesco signs a monumental work that rightfully claims the title of the definitive biography of the founder of psychoanalysis.” Álex Vicente, El País “A vast and inspired work that captures the historical and ideological context of the time and the man who changed the way we see existence and our sexuality.” André Masse-Stamberger