Stigmata Escaping Texts

Hélène Cixous, Phyllis Alesia Perry — 1998

A 'wilful extremist' according to the London Times, Helene Cixous is hailed as one of the most formidable writers and thinkers of our time. From collaborating with the acclaimed performance company Theatre du Soleil, to producing a weighty body of both fiction and non-fiction, Cixous is celebrated for her brilliant contributions to contemporary culture. Acclaimed by luminaries such as Jacques Derrida, her writing has nonetheless been misunderstood and misread to a surprising extent. With the inclusion of Stigmata, one of her greatest works, in the Routledge Classics series, this is about to change. Questions that have long concerned her - the self and the other, autobiographies of writing, sexual difference, literary theory, post-colonial theory, death and life - are explored here and woven into a narrative.

Reviews

lala@newageculture

Dec 19, 2024

this is definitely one of the best books for those in love to the bone, who love selflessly and with an almost god-like devotion to an equally mundane and flesh-and-blood man like themselves.

Katie@katie_____ad

Jan 7, 2024

Highlights

lala@newageculture

Eat me up, my love, or else I’m going to eat you up. Fear of eating, fear of the edible, fear on the part of the one of them who feels loved, desired, who wants to be loved, desired, who desires to be desired, who knows that there is no greater proof of love than the other’s appetite, who is dying to be eaten up yet scared to death by the idea of being eaten up, who says or doesn’t say, but who signifies: I beg you, eat me up. Want me down to the marrow. And yet manage it so as to keep me alive. But I often turn about or compromise, because I know that you won’t eat me up, in the end, and I urge you: bite me. Sign my death with your teeth. We love, we fall into the jaws of the fire. We can’t escape it.