The Day I Wasn't There by Helene Cixous

The Day I Wasn't There by Helene Cixous

In this memoir-novel, a narrator who resembles Helene Cixous obsessively recounts an incident - the premature death of her first-born child, a Down syndrome baby left in the care of the clinic in Algeria where her midwife mother works. She uses this event to probe her family history and her relationship with her mother, a refugee from Nazi Germany; her dead father, after whom the baby is named; and her medical-student brother, who takes on some of the duties of a father figure. Cixous's elusive writing bears all the trademarks of her poetic, provocative style, vivid with word play, intense feeling and a stream-of-consciousness that moves freely over time and place. The narrator's mother claims not to remember what happened, and the brother tries to fill in some gaps in the story. By the end of the book we understand the significance of the title: one day Cixous's mother returned to the clinic to find the baby on the brink of death. Rather than attempt to save him she chose to end his suffering. By closing the door to the imaginary clinic at the end, the narrator at last resolves the feelings of guilt and realizes that each human being has a fate they must endure. Informed by psychoanalytical theory, and always brutally honest, ""The Day I Wasn't There"" is above all an intimate study of a woman's inner landscape.

Helene Cixous is a French writer, feminist philosopher, playwright, critic, and activist who continues to influence writers, scholars, and feminists around the world. Her recent works include Reveries of the Wild Woman (Northwestern, forthcoming), The Third Body (Northwestern, 1999), Veils (with Jacques Derrida) (Stanford, 2001), Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint (Columbia, 2003), and The Writing Notebooks of Helene Cixous (Continuum, 2004). Beverley Bie Brahic is also the translator of Helene Cixous's Reveries of the Wild Woman.

SKU	Nicht verfügbar
ISBN 13	9780810123649
ISBN 10	0810123649
Titel	The Day I Wasn't There
Autor	Helene Cixous
Serie	Avant-Garde And Modernism Studies
Buchzustand	Nicht verfügbar
Bindungsart	Paperback
Verlag	Northwestern University Press
Erscheinungsjahr	2006-05-30
Seitenanzahl	112
Hinweis auf dem Einband	Die Abbildung des Buches dient nur Illustrationszwecken, die tatsächliche Bindung, das Cover und die Auflage können sich davon unterscheiden.