Who Killed Gilles Deleuze? is a novel about one man’s obsession with the purported suicide of a famous French philosopher.
When a young Danish man, who has just arrived in Barcelona, meets the Spanish writer Rodrigo, he becomes a witness to a four-day-long monologue about philosophy, identity, love, and life and its possible limits.
Rodrigo scrutinizes the suicide of Gilles Deleuze with as much passion as if his own future depended on it. For several years, he has devoted all his time and energy to solving this mysterious death, which he is convinced, is a murder. His own life has been on pause.
How can a life-affirming philosopher kill himself? How can a person who believed that each self is already a multiplicity kill himself without letting any self survive? Is there any part of Deleuze living on the run in hiding in the US?
The Spanish writer approaches this suicide with the methods of a detective elaborating different theories of who to blame and not blame, describing how the philosopher’s fall from his apartment could have happened; he casts doubt on the assumption that Deleuze killed himself due to illness.
The meeting between the young Danish man and Rodrigo takes place in the fabled streets of Barcelona, where Rodrigo draws on the Spanish city’s characteristics and history of political struggles to exemplify the enigma of Deleuze. After four days, Rodrigo disappears, leaving the young Danish man bewildered and with only one choice: to take on Rodrigo’s investigation as his own or risk becoming obsessed as well.
Who Killed Gilles Deleuze? is the young Danish man’s story of his meeting with Rodrigo, whose only reason for living was Deleuze, whose only reason for killing himself was not to die at all.
Who Killed Gilles Deleuze? is 86 pages long and written in Danish by Finn Janning. It was released on the 17th of June 2016. See here.
Or see my essay Happy Death of Gilles Deleuze.
