These essays, as selected and translated by Stephen Heath, are among the finest writings Barthes ever published on film and photography, and on the phenomena of sound and image. The classic pieces "Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative" and "The Death of the Author" are also included. Roland Barthes, the French critic and semiotician, was one of the most important critics and essayists of this century. His work continues to influence contemporary literary theory and cultural studies. Image-Music-Text collects Barthes's best writings on photography and the cinema, as well as fascinating articles on the relationship between images and sound. Two of Barthes's most important essays, "Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative" and "The Death of the Author" are also included in this fine anthology, an excellent introduction to his thought. “The dominant perspective of the thirteen essays collected in Image-Music-Text is semiology. Barthes extends the 'empire of signs' over film and photography, music criticism . . . and writing and reading as historically situated activities. Several essays are frankly didactic. They review and expand the domain of a certain terminology: interpretive codes, narrational systems, functions and indices, denotation and connotation. Yet those impatient with special terms will not mind too much, for where else do they get, under the same cover, Beethoven and 'Goldfinger,' the Bible and 'Double Bang à Bangkok'? . . . Barthes is technical without being heavy, and a professional without ceasing to be an amateur. His precise yet fluent prose treats personal insight and systematic concepts with equal courtesy.” ― Geoffrey Hartman, The New York Times Book Review Roland Barthes changed the way a generation read. A cultural commentator before his time, his careful if playful analysis of texts revolutionised the way we comprehend cultural products. Both critic and literary essayist, his writings continue to provoke. His best known work includes Mythologies, Camera Lucida, Image-Music-Text, The Empire of Signs, A Lover's Discourse, Writing Degree Zero, S/Z and The Fashion System. Translated by Andy Stafford, Senior Lecturer in French Studies, University of Leeds and edited by Andy Stafford and Michael Carter, Department of Art History and Theory, University of Sydney. Roland Barthes (1915-1980) was a major French writer, literary theorist and critic of French culture and society. Stephen Heath is a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, and the author of Questions of Cinema (1985), among other books.