Freud's Requiem: Mourning, Memory, and the Invisible History of a Summer Walk

In this absorbing, thoughtful narrative, a young writer explores Sigmund Freud’s provocative ideas on creativity and mortality and their roots in his history, while searching for broader lessons about love, memory, mourning, and creativity.

Written in 1915 during winter and wartime, Freud’s little-known essay On Transience records an afternoon conversation with “a young but already famous poet” and his “taciturn friend” about mortality, eternity, and the “sense” of life. In Freud’s Requiem, ...