The three-volume works of Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) will very fully present to our reader the literary work of this truly unique figure of Western European art of the 20th century. poet and prose writer, playwright and screenwriter, critic and art theorist, a variety of painter, graphic artist, scenographer, cartoonist, creator of amazing frescoes, who seemed to have everything on his shoulder This revived gifted man became for many years a symbol of the modern avant-garde. The third volume of Cocteau's works is as full of "first-discovery" texts for Russian culture as the previous two volumes. Two essays ("The Difficulty of Being" and "The Stranger's Diary"), in which existential problems are discussed in parallel with the story of "life and art", are of interest not only in terms of the mechanisms of artistic thinking, but also as a panorama of French art of the second third of the 20th century. The Opium essay, marked by a special, acute confession, is a ruthless diary of a drug addict undergoing a course of detoxification. In translations, the word Cocteau-poet acquires a bright Russian adequate, the powerful energy of the brilliant master does not lose its power in the interpretation of translators. This book is an important contribution to the construction of a complete picture of French culture of the 20th century in the Russian “book”, its importance for Russian intellectuals can not be overestimated.