Double Oblivion of the Ourang-Outang

"Few writers today can express the literary in the way Cixous can."
Times Literary Supplement
"Cixous recalls anew many of the figures who have peopled her universe over the years: Joyce, Kafka, Stendhal, Derrida, her cats, her mother, her children. They return as new, doubles of their earlier selves. With characteristic humour, this 'Double Oblivion' explores how forgetting keeps the past not just alive but young."
Mairéad Hanrahan, University College London
"Who tells the story: the narrator, distracted discoverer of her own first "larval" book and carer for a mother doughtily exploring the furthest reaches of her years? Or is it the narrator's companions and inner inhabitants? In addition to the Ourang-Outang, she makes room for Heathcliff, Stendhal, most especially her twin Jacques Derrida, not forgetting Rimbaud, Nefertiti, Proust and Poe. Or does the story emanate from the strange character of the Box? Where exactly is oblivion, reading's double? Where does memory lodge? In what cupboards, words and elliptical lakes? Nothing escapes Cixous in her tender, unflinching attention to the duels with oblivion we all face.'
Sarah Wood, University of Kent

"Few writers today can express the literary in the way Cixous can." Times Literary Supplement "Cixous recalls anew many of the figures who have peopled her universe over the years: Joyce, Kafka, Stendhal, Derrida, her cats, her mother, her children. They return as new, doubles of their earlier selves. With characteristic humour, this 'Double Oblivion' explores how forgetting keeps the past not just alive but young." Mairead Hanrahan, University College London "Who tells the story: the narrator, distracted discoverer of her own first "larval" book and carer for a mother doughtily exploring the furthest reaches of her years? Or is it the narrator's companions and inner inhabitants? In addition to the Ourang-Outang, she makes room for Heathcliff, Stendhal, most especially her twin Jacques Derrida, not forgetting Rimbaud, Nefertiti, Proust and Poe. Or does the story emanate from the strange character of the Box? Where exactly is oblivion, reading's double? Where does memory lodge? In what cupboards, words and elliptical lakes? Nothing escapes Cixous in her tender, unflinching attention to the duels with oblivion we all face.' Sarah Wood, University of Kent