The "Diary of a Stranger" by Jean Cocteau is not a classic memoir or diary, but deeply intimate and deeply philosophical reflections of the "herald of the new art." Cocteau writes about nature, poetry and beauty, psychoanalysis, freedom and the death penalty, friendship, memory and the birth of ideas. He recalls meetings and conversations with Sartre, Stravinsky, Proust and Picasso. And these essays reveal the personality of Cocteau, one of the most original artists of the century.