This is the major autobiographical statement from Nobellaureate Andre Gide. In the events and musings recorded here wefind the seeds of those themes that obsessed him throughout hiscareer and imbued his classic novels with such power. Gide led alife of uncompromising self-scrutiny, and his literary worksresembled moments of that life. With If It Die..., Gide determinedto relay without sentiment or embellishment the circumstances ofhis childhood and the birth of his philosophic wanderings, and indoing so to bring it all to light. Gide's unapologetic account ofhis awakening homosexual desire and his portrait of Oscar Wilde andLord Alfred Douglas as they indulged in debauchery in North Africaare thrilling in their frankness and alone make If It Die...anessential companion to the work of a twentieth-century literarymaster.
