Top Results for Mortality

Cancer Ward is a novel by Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first published in Russian in 1966. Set mainly in a hospital ward in the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic after the Stalin era, it follows patients and medical staff whose illnesses and personal histories expose different responses to f...

Malone Dies is a 1951 novel by Irish writer Samuel Beckett and the second book in the trilogy that also includes Molloy and The Unnamable. Its narrator, Malone, is an old and seriously ill man confined to a bed, who passes time by recording possessions, observations, and invented stories while await...

Man in the Holocene is a 1979 novella by Swiss writer Max Frisch, originally published in German as Der Mensch erscheint im Holozän. It follows Geiser, an aging man isolated in a house in the Ticino region during a period of severe weather, as his memory and sense of continuity weaken. Frisch combin...

The artwork presents a meticulously preserved, large-scale tiger shark encased within an amber-colored resin. Damien Hirst’s piece explores themes of mortality and the human perception of death. It utilizes taxidermy and biomorphism to create a visually arresting statement about life's fragility. Th...

The Seven Ages is a poetry collection published in 2001 by the American poet Louise Glück, who was later awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. The book consists of 44 lyrical poems that explore the trajectory of human development, moving through the successive phases of life from childhood to old a...

Hans Holbein the Younger’s “The Bones of All Men” is a woodcut from his influential “Dance of Death” series produced around 1523-1525. This work depicts skeletal figures dancing with living people, illustrating the universality of death across social classes during the Renaissance. The image powerfu...

Exit the King is the English title of Eugène Ionesco’s one-act play Le Roi se meurt, first performed in Paris in 1962. Its central figure, King Bérenger I, is told that his kingdom and his life are ending, and the action follows his resistance to that fact. The play uses absurdist stage conventions...

Mike Birbiglia’s “The Old Man & The Pool” is a comedic stand-up special presented on Netflix. It features Birbiglia's signature storytelling style exploring themes of aging, family relationships, and confronting personal anxieties. He recounts a memorable experience at a local pool, using humor to e...

Nikki Glaser’s “Someday You’ll Die” is a 2020 HBO stand-up special exploring themes of aging and mortality through her signature darkly comedic lens. The performance examines anxieties surrounding death, the passage of time, and personal reflection. It’s notable for Glaser's unflinching honesty and...

Mortal Acts, Mortal Words is a 1980 poetry collection by American poet Galway Kinnell. Its poems examine mortality, physical existence, intimacy, family life, and encounters with the natural world, continuing Kinnell's characteristic attention to ordinary experience and the body. The collection is i...

All Men Are Mortal is a 1946 novel by French writer and philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. Its central figure, Raymond Fosca, has lived for centuries after gaining immortality, and his encounters with the actress Régine expose the tension between endless existence and the human need for purpose. The no...

"The Death Notebooks" is a 1974 poetry collection written by the American confessional poet Anne Sexton. The collection is characterized by its stark, thematic focus on mortality, religious contemplation, and the author's ongoing obsession with impending death. It contains several of her notable lat...