Hélène Cixous redefines the borders of writing about existence. Her poetic memorial testimony, Osnabrück, a city without Jews, is the city where her nother, Eva Klein, was born. Eva is always there, with her, in the pages of the book or in every moment of her life. Through her mother, the complex relationship with the world is defined and re-defined, again and again.
On one side, there is the experiemental character of the writing. In a memoir, there is memory who matters and who is shaping the narrative, based on the coming and going of the mind, from the past to the future. In Osnabrück though, there is the present of the moulded memory that is given a voice. Actually, multiple voices, echoing the reverberations of fragments of childhood memories. Voices transcending time and space, geography and history, moving from the visible to the invisible level. Only in this way it can really intimately relate. And intimacy is a language of knowledge - of the world, oneself and the others.
I´ve read the book in the original French language and the language - through the choice of words and emotional reflection and capacity to outline situations, among others - is absorbing entirely the reader´s attention and energy.
Born in Oran, Algeria, both Cixous and her brother as well as her mother were involved at certain degrees into the country´s independence struggle. Her first language was German. She is an outstanding intellectual voice and woman philosopher and poet that I can´t wait to keep discovering through more of her writings as well.
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