S/Z is the linguistic distillation of Barthes's system of semiology, a science of signs and symbols, in which Balzac's novella, Sarrasine, is dissected semantically to uncover layers of hidden meaning.

Roland Barthes was born in 1915 and studied French literature and classics at the University of Paris. After teaching French at universities in Romania and Egypt, he joined the Centre Nationale de Récherche Scientifique, where he devoted himself to research in sociology and lexicology. He was a professor at the Collège de France until his death in 1980.