Pascal Bruckner (1948, Paris) was a member of the French New Philosophers who broke with Marxism in the 1970s, criticizing both Jean-Paul Sartre and poststructuralism, as well as the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger. After completing his doctorate with Roland Barthes, Bruckner achieved his first success with the essay The New Love Disorder ( Le Nouveau désordre amoureux ) written with Alain Finkielkraut. This was followed by the novels Ice Moon , based on which Roman Polanski made the film Bitter Moon , and The Thieves of Beauty. He is the author of several essays, including Tears of the White Man ( Le Sanglot de l'Homme blanc ) and The Tyranny of Remorse: An Essay on Western Masochism . His memoir The Good Son reads like a novel, a Bildungsroman, in which the author describes his journey from a devout Catholic boy to one of the leading French philosophers and writers.