1995

Is taking an anti-depressant; later in the year will add medication for anxiety.

January, tries to read the typescript of the 1974 and 1977 conversations with Buzzi, which Buzzi still wants to publish, but reports that he can only manage “a few pages.”  By April, he has read the whole, calling it the “Book of Saul,” and dislikes the whimsical tone with which he described his early years:  “the tragic part of my life treated with allegria!”  Reflections and Shadows, as the book came to be titled, will be published posthumously.

Beginning of his friendship with author and Romanian-émigré Norman Manea, who had arrived in the US a few years earlier; ST insists they speak in English.

February 7, to St. Bart’s with Sigrid.  The next day she suffers a mental collapse and ST flies her back to New York for hospitalization.

February 27, reports to Buzzi that he’s “transfixed by the O.J. Simpson trial” on TV.

May 24, tells Buzzi that “I’m finally destroying a large portion of my drawings, something I’ve postponed to the future for many years—and now even the future is passing. So I’m in a funereal state.”

October 15, arrives at the clinic in Überlingen in hopes of alleviating his depression. Routine blood tests reveal tumorous activity.  Back in New York (after a brief visit to Milan), doctors discover the presence of thyroid cancer, deemed indolent, and no treatment is recommended.

October 20, opening of “Saul Steinberg: About America 1948-1995: The Collection of Jeffrey and Sivia Loria,” Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania. Travels to the Yale University Art Gallery in March 1996.

December, decides to leave his papers to the Beinecke Library, Yale University, “where some librarian, now a baby, will dig out the pearls that I can’t find.”