Days in the Clouds

The never-before-published last essays of the late Duncan Smith, at once heartbreakingly personal and bracingly intellectual.

Following the appearance of his theoretical tour-de-force The Age of Oil and his AIDS diagnosis, Duncan Smith (1954–1991) produced Days in the Clouds, a collection of thirty-eight essays sparkling with his characteristic linguistic brilliance. Now published for the first time, Days in the Clouds chronicles Smith’s response to the disease that would kill him as well as its severe impact on downtown NYC culture. At once heartbreakingly personal and bracingly intellectual, these essays examine in exacting detail a range of subjects, from the semiotics of gay life and the visionary potential of nature to the shortcomings of Susan Sontag’s writings on illness, the literary criticism of Paul de Man, and, as always with Smith, the meanings hidden within proper names. 

Alongside Days in the Clouds, Semiotext(e) is bringing out the much-awaited republication of Age of Oil, Smith’s brilliant and long out-of-print collection of essays from 1987.