Stigmata: Escaping Texts

Helene Cixous — author, playwright and French feminist theorist — is a key figure in twentieth-century literary theory. Stigmata brings together her most recent essays for the first time.

Acclaimed for her intricate and challenging writing style, Cixous presents a collection of texts that get away — escaping the reader, the writers, the book. Cixous's writing pursues authors such as Stendhal, Joyce, Derrida, and Rembrandt, da Vinci, Picasso — works that share an elusive movement in spite of striking differences. Along the way these essays explore a broad range of poetico-philosophical questions that have become characteristic of Cixous' work:

* love's labours lost and found

* feminine hours

* autobiographies of writing

* the prehistory of the work of art

Stigmata goes beyond theory, becoming an extraordinary writer's testimony to our lives and times.

This collection of essays explores a broad range of poetico-philosophical questions that have long been circulating in the cixousian universe: love's labours lost and found, feminine hours, autobiographies of writing, and animal-human family ties.

"Stigmata" brings together Helene Cixous's most recent essays for the first time in any language. It is a collection of texts that get away--escaping the reader, the writers, the book--by one of the greatest authors and intellectuals of our times.

Signifying through a tissue of philosophical metaphor, poetic power, critical insight and disarming lightness, Cixous's writing is taken up in a reading pursuit, chasing across borders and through languages on the heels of works by authors such as Stendhal, Joyce, Derrida, Lispector, Tsvetayeva, and Rembrandt, da Vinci, Picasso--works that share an elusive movement in spite of striking differences.

Along the way these essays explore a broad range of poetico-philosophical questions that have long been circulating in the Cixousian universe: love's labours lost and found, feminine hours, autobiographies of writing, animal-human family ties, the prehistory of the work of art... woven into a performance of writing at the intersection of contemporary Western history and a singularity named Helene Cixous.

Evoking her writing "origins," the economy of a departure from Algeria (so as) never to arrive, and the psychomythical events that are engraved as fertile wounds into the body's many bodies, this book is an extraordinary writer's testimony to our lives and times.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 195-198) and index.