Roland Barthes was born in Cherbourg, France on November 12, 1915, the son of Henriette (neé Binger) and Louis Barthes. Barthes's father was a naval officer and he died in action a month before his son's first birthday. Barthes's childhood was spent in Bayonne in the south-west of France near the border with Spain, here he lived with his mother, his paternal grandmother, Berthe Barthes, and his aunt Alice, a piano teacher who helped instil in Barthes his lifelong interest in music. In 1924 Barthes and his mother moved to Paris:, although Barthes continued throughout his life to consider Bayonne as his true home and Paris as somewhere in which it was necessary to pursue a career. Barthes's promising academic career was interrupted from 1…
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