From The Word To Life - A Dialogue Between Jacques Derrida and Hélène Cixous

From the Word to Life: A Dialogue between Jacques Derrida and Hlne Cixous
Author(s): Jacques Derrida, Hlne Cixous, Aliette Armel and Ashley Thompson
Reviewed work(s):
Source: New Literary History, Vol. 37, No. 1, Hlne Cixous: When the Word Is a Stage
(Winter, 2006), pp. 1-13
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20057924 .
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From the Word to Life: A Dialogue between

Jacques Derrida and H?l?ne Cixous*
in an oral interview: H?l?ne Cixous has
[You have agreed to participate
written about the danger of the "spoken word" with regards to "think
a role here: it has an important place in both
ing." The voice also plays
of your
texts.]
who do not read me reproach me at times for

the
voice, as if to reduce it to silence. In truth, I
playing writing against
a generalization
a
reelaboration
and
of the concept of writing,
proposed
of text or of trace. Orality is also the inscription
[frayage] of a trace. But
the
Those
Derrida:
Jacques
treatment
serious
of
these
writing
questions
I have
difficulty
for me.
the most
count
which
time,
requires
problems
sense.
in the narrow
about
improvising
three
Our
retreat,
patience,
are
voices
the
out
setting
on a formidable
and singular exercise here: to give each other the floor
to
let
each
other speak in order to trace out an unpredictable
[laparole],
Our
path.
words
triangulate,
should
at
play
interrupting
models
on
itself
or
itself,
voice
to be
meant
or
"out
loud
For
pronounced.
more
than
the
not,
[? voix
as well
seminar
my
forty
as
they
they
are
should
articu
an abyssal difference,
despite
Interior
I write
is always
staged.
voix
For
[?
basse]"
angle,
while
even
other
and for me,
voice.
one
than
each
lated together. Yes, for H?l?ne

writing
more
form
for
years
voice
stages
always
or
"in a low
haute]"
texts
which
I have
are
written
not
what
I teach from the first word to the last; I try out in advance the rhythm
to improvise, Iwill "vocalize" in the
and the tonality of what, pretending
lecture theater. I never write in silence, I listen to myself, or I listen to
the
dictation
of
another
dance,
therefore,
of
voice,
of
scenography
more
terms,
than
of
breath
one
and
voice:
of
staging,
"changes
in
tone." The preparation

of a seminar is like a path of freedom
[chemin de
la libert?] : I can let myself speak, take all the time which is given to me in
as it involves texts of very different genres, each
writing. For publication,
time
the
H?l?ne
what
register
of
Cixous: We
is called
* Aliette
Armel
dialogue
? Magazine
entre
the
voice
both
the speaking
interview
changes.
several writing practices. One

that uses
voice [ la voix qu on dit haute], but which for
have
and H?l?ne
"Du mot ? la vie: un
with Jacques Derrida
Cixous,
et H?l?ne
litt?raire
22-29
Cixous,"
(2004):
Magazine
Derrida
Jacques
litt?raire 2004.
New Literary History, 2005, 37: 1-13
2
me
NEW
is meager
another
and
is on
which
unequivocal,
that silently gets deeper and deeper

seems to be without
voice, whereas
which
chorus
of
[pr?-voix],
voices
your
be
heard.
is a
voice
When
write
you
you
pre-voice,
the
with
in a
order
HISTORY
of
the degrees
single voice
your
a text
write
LITERARY
teaching;
of writing,
a
it makes
seminars
foresee
you
to
in order
it.
respeak
is a theatricalization
of what is already a staging. You
respeaking
double
the theatrical
stakes. You are the actor performing
what you
This
write
as
an
author.
You
double
all ways.
yourself?in
I don't
write
my
a region of
seminars.
For days I travel through
texts by
multiple
can
ramifications
until
I
think
them
crossings grafts
through by heart.
Then I improvise for four or five hours with two pages of notes serving
as a seedbed.
I have this need to let myself be haunted by voices coming
from
elsewheres
my
that
resonate
me.
through
I want
to have
voices.
As
a result I am at the mercy of their

inspiration
[insufflement]. They can fail
me. Imaster nothing,
I submit to the oracles. This risk is the condition
of my creative energy and of my discoveries.
It can happen
that I run out
of breath
steam
that
loses
[souffle],
something
[s'essouffle]. I saw myself
on
text
in
incredible
La
Artaud,
your
clearly
parole souffl?, in this
bivalence
of the souffl?, a word whispered/given
else, and a
by someone
word stolen, whisked
We
both
let
the
take
word
its
away.1
flight:2 this
release of the word
like the release of a bird or a breath:
let go
a
that
will
have
made
something
crossing.
Choreographilosopher,
choir,
coryphaeus,
you
text
the
make
dance,
waltz,
turn,
go
out
of
even
control,
rap [d?raper m?me rapper] along with your supremely
and
precise
thought. A flight of texts. I have rather the
improvisational
of
of
Where
music.
does it come to me from? Beautiful
song,
feeling
ancient
voices
lead
those
me,
of my
ancestors?
Jacques Derrida: The parole souffl?e is also the dictation of more than one
voice
and feminine).
intertwine,
(masculine
They weave
together,
replace
differences
each
other.
in
pitch,
Always
timbre,
more
and
than
tone:
one
so
voice
many
that
others,
I let
men
resonate
with
or women,
to take
in me. Who
(to) me. As if I ventured
speak
a
to
sort of choir
for
which
I should nonetheless
render
responsibility
to confirm, going with or against the other,
justice. In countersigning,
comes
or
to me from more
that which
than one other
(masculine
who
speak
or the silhouettes
Other unconsciouses
also intervene,
of
feminine).
for whom I speak and who let me speak
known or unknown
addressees,
[me donnent la parole], who give me their word
[me donnent leur parole].
First
Encounter
the two of you has lasted for forty years. Did

between
[This dialogue
at the brasserie
Le Balzar,
in 1963, leave traces,
your first meeting
sediments
of voice?]
BETWEEN
DIALOGUE
CIXOUS
AND
DERRIDA
It would be difficult for me to evoke here, in improvis

Jacques Derrida:
concrete
and living traces of my encounter with H?l?ne. There
ing, the
was her first card after reading Force et signification, the first face-to-face at
the
Balzar,
I am
But
yes.
sure
not
that
the
effect
of
these
experiences
survives intact. I remember

the first manuscript
H?l?ne
in me
confided
a
in my garden. The cultural
{Lepr?nom de Dieu). It arrived like meteor
or socioeditorial
the "readership"
of the time was not ready, it
field,
to me
seemed
(was
there.
beginning
this double
to
I mistaken?),
receive
to measure
and
for her in the course

and anxiety.
dazzlement
So I feared
feeling:
was
what
of the reading,
with
H?l?ne
Cixous: Around
the same scenes, my feelings were
slightly
was
different.
in place for me when
I nonsaw him the
put
Everything
first of the first times. What was inscribed
in what came to be a sort of
for
me?that
that I nonsaw him: I only
is,
legend
something
legible?is
heard
It was
him.
an
I was
accident.
extraordinary
years
eighteen
old.
It
was at the Sorbonne,

he was taking his agr?gation? Iwas way in the back
of the lecture theater, I "saw" only his back. I saw only his voice. He was
has eternally
interested me:
the question
of
speaking of that which
death. I was seized by nothing other than his absolutely other
language,
so
the question
of death.
It was for me the
alive, thinking
powerfully
of thought and literature. Years later I wrote him after
opening
having
read
his
texts.
first
each
Thereafter,
time
it was
the
same:
I nonsaw
him.
It was a sort of prophetic

I wrote
phantasm where he was the prophet.
this in Quelle heure est-il?:4 I saw not his person but his being
walking on
crest
the
limit-work,
to
think
what
effect,
word
a mountain.
of
for a long
our
At
first
time and about Joyce. We

we
"the
were
thing."
at
the
My
each
limit,
way
of
at
encounter,
coming
from
was
Balzar,
we
spoke
step by step around
progressed
nonseeing
the
our
visionary:
own
edge
trying
one
nonsees
one has to see otherwise.

In describing
in Spectres ofMarx the visor
he makes his own self-portrait. He has a helmet
[heaume] (what
of words:
home
homme
heaume,
om),
a natural
visor,
he
looks
seen. Unheimlich. The

without
this man,
being
being,
stays back and
looks at you. All you have is the letter. From the
what I have
beginning,
seen is his
in
I
which
knew
could
wander.
I have
my thought
language,
never
him
and
as
each
time
it
is
I was
if
stopped reading
meticulously
he
The
an
what
thinks.
that
he
which
has
is,
person
seeing
appearance
and is part of my life, is the incarnation
of his thought in his
language,
is the speech of this language. This Derridianized
"Derridian." He
French
it, unmakes
it, scours it, plays out its
language, he ransoms
idiomatic potential,
awakens the words buried under forgetfulness.
He
resuscitates
it.When
I heard him I found the liberty I needed: of course
this liberty existed in Rimbaud,
but with Jacques Derrida poetry
began
to gallop philosophy.
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
From a certain point of view, that of writing itself, if I

Jacques Derrida:
manner.
it
that
reads me in an incomparable
She
may put
way, H?l?ne
most
to
to
the
best
the
finds
the
and
access,
secret,
immediately
forge
the form, to the meaning
and unconscious
of
I
what
write.
body
My
for this is boundless.
gratitude
Writers,
Jews, from Algeria
[InMonolingualism
of the Other, Jacques Derrida explains that this language
that unites you was forged in shared origins. You are both "Writers, Jews,
from Algeria."]
all
shared
in an
Later,
exchanges.
this.
I
began
to write
acute
increasingly
on
we
share
in
this
were
origins
"my"
Algeria,
The Postcard, Monolingualism

that
(it was
the beginning
our
War"),
"Algerian
with
In
Derrida:
Jacques
very
we
manner,
on
childhood,
my
only
too
obvious
after
just
aware
we
of
etc.,
Judaism,
that
the
our
in
present
became
etc. Beyond
of the Other, Circumfession,

it is
sense,
however
not
write
as
texts
as could be. Our altercations

dissimilar
with the French
language are
also different. We don't have the same training. Although
my taste for
I began by trying to have my
literature came first, I am a "philosopher."
work be legitimized
institution. Before
by the academic
philosophical
a
was
of
certain
number
liberties
with
it
that I
necessary
writing,
taking
a certain amount of credit. Before
first be accorded
the
this, I betrayed
norms
in
only
prudent,
and
cunning,
manner.
quasi-clandestine
this didn't escape everyone. My strange and stormy passion for

Though
the French language freed itself bit by bit. I remain obstinately monolin
gual,
can
without
teach
any
in
access
natural
but
English,
my
to another
attachment
language.
to French
I read
Inflex
through her origins, which are not only Sephardic

H?l?ne
has a native relationship
her
Ashkenazi,
mother,
by
ible. Whereas
also,
German.
And
reads
many
other
German,
is absolute.
but
to
languages.
H?l?ne Cixous: When we met, we were each in our own way busy trying
to speak to
to approach
the shimmering
heart of the French
language,
For
it intimately
la
also
from
other
me,
[?
my
coming
tutoyer].
languages.
over
also presided
We are each foreign otherwise. And this foreignness
our
first
encounter:
he
perceived
me
as
foreign,
even
to his
world,
for
and which for me is German.

this part of me which he calls Ashkenazi
is a thematized
What brings together our dissimilarities
of
experience
was marked
the inside of the outside. My imagination
the
first
by
DIALOGUE
DERRIDA
BETWEEN
of my
experience
AND
event
the
childhood,
CIXOUS
he
would
say.
I was
two-and-a-half
years old and suddenly my father was a lieutenant-doctor,

the
to enter
right
this
of
place
admission
and
in 1939: I had
exclusion
that
was
in Oran
called the Cercle Militaire.

I enter into this garden: and Iwas not inside.
one can be inside without
I had the Experience:
being inside, there is an
inside in the inside, an outside
in the inside and this goes on infinitely.
to me like paradise, hell gaped: I was
In this place which had appeared
not able to enter
into that into which
I had been admitted;
I was
excluded
because of my Jewish origins. And everything
is inextricable. I
it until
did not understand
the other children
of
spit the message
on
me.
never
I
have
the
without
it
exclusion,
rejection
stopped
living
me
or
a
home.
The
between
the
inside
and
passage
bothering
becoming
is found in everything
I write, as in all of Jacques Derrida's
not
I
did
that
in the beginning
know
he
had
been concerned
thought.
with legitimizing
his presence
in philosophy.
The secret alien that he is
inscribed something
else in his texts. In any case, I had the impression of
into
The
slipping
Origin of Geometry, The Voice and thePhenomenon through
the outside
secret
cracks,
literature,
through
from
benefiting
that
explosions
were
for me. One
of these books was placed under

the epigraph of Edgar Allen Poe. In the other, Jacques Derrida
slipped
of Husserl. Through
literature he gave me access
Joyce into the middle
to philosophy,
its arrow slits and draw-bridges;
I slipped
showing me
The
of
the
of the
passages.
through underground
presence
question
illuminations
of
present,
and destinies
the
of presence,
present
even of the henceforth. We

three
years
board.
We
old
of
I have
what
was
survival,
experienced
I watched
when
share
had
my
called
father
expulsion
unscrew
nosblessures,
at work.
already
by Vichy.
his
doctor's
And
I was
sign
"ournoblewounds":
our title to nobility

[blessures], but ours [nos] and they become
to
We
have
been
able
to the tenth of a
understand
each
other
[noblesse].
wounds
word,
because
inscribed
the
work
in the life-book
of
of
stigmatization,
of both
the
scar,
was
originarily
of us.
[When H?l?ne Cixous writes, inRootprints, "We are from the same garden,"
are you alluding to the garden of the Cercle militaire?]
"We are from the same garden" could open onto all
Jacques Derrida:
the world's gardens. But the literal reference
is first the Jardin d'Essai, a
botanical
park,
in
Algiers,
with
tropical
trees,
next
to a
soccer
stadium
I often played. This Garden

still exists. We have never been there
together, but it represents a sort of paradise lost. InH. C. for life, the word
essai (trial, attempt, essay) overwrites
its letters and its
itself, imposing
where
syntax
at
a crossroads
of
sentences
and
"logics."
NEW
H?l?ne
French
Cixous:
It's
"it is."
c'est,
literature
extraordinary?a
with
begins
the Essais.
d'Essai.
called
garden
HISTORY
LITERARY
It is a book
of
Esse:
to
The
Latin
be.
In the Beginning,
[For both of you, writing
that nourishes
expression
the
Cixous:
H?l?ne
a certain
of thought
play, an
and even, at times,
narrative.]
Writing
start
the words
on,
takes off from a word
draws on words,
the progression
a poem with nothing

and Difference was grammatically
could make
One
his books. While

goes
the
of
progression
is the Word
There
more
playing
and
more,
the titles of
proper, as time
but
and
zeugmas,
causing
texts are engendered

by a brilliant word
in
Derridian.
Fichusl Who
brilliantly
replayed
in the
of
number
would
French
language
have thought? And Demeurel B?liersl I envy his titles. His hypersensibility
and philosophonically.
to what French words conceal both follitterally
the
there is the word. Both
Jacques Derrida: Yes, in the beginning
term.
I
before
As
if
think
and
the
nomination
writing: surprised
nothing
not invent, Imake of
by some resource of the French language that I did
but already rendered possible by
it something
that was not programmed
the
and
lexical
trove.
treasure
syntactic
this
Hence
overloaded
feeling:
a
in the service of the language?and
accomplished
jubilation,
me
comes
to
the
from
but
it
is
It
all
certain
mine,
irresponsibility.
a
in passing
does without me
through me. During
language?which
mission
recent
meant
time
the
interview
what
exactly
"to
countersign,"
avec
came
to me
it
by
surprise:
jurer
expression
same
at
the
but
for:
"to clash
I was
with,"
looking
to
..." And
under
oath with
"to swear with,
speak
Iwas not
then "to swear with" this conspiracy
[conjuration] itself. Miracle:
resources
a
of this
the
I
then
second before.
exploited
thinking of this
untranslatable
while
language
use
certain
of
me:
guides
the word
can
only
example,
organized
resources
lose
have.
is eternally
from
should be inseparable
been much more

trying to reinvent
For
can
expression
that the sentence
translation
it.
In
an
in my
interested
in their language
once
cannot
I retained
H.C.
be
and
the multiplicity
preserving
the
avec
Jurer
expression.
into
translated
that a
the contradiction
is
Untranslatability
what
always
to idiom. The body of

to such an extent that
indebted
the meaning
apparent
another
have
translators
paradox,
texts than the French themselves,

in
I have just described.
the experience
pour
la vie
as
the
most
just
title,
the
in such a way as to philosophically
my
exploit
texts
of
minute
the
of the idiom on different
analysis
registers:
text
BETWEEN
DIALOGUE
vie means
at once
also
faithful
and
la vie which
the pour
I have
life which
CIXOUS
thought
by Freud, of an affirmative
chance of her name and initials: H?l?ne
by H?l?ne,
contingent
but
AND
DERRIDA
never
unfailing
is for her
been
to
able
affirmation,
I am
share.
"for
"forever,"
friendship,
an
am I "for life" like her. This discord
neither
life, etc. It is the

Cixous.5 C'est pour la
of
not
life,"
sides
taking
with
but
life,"
"against
is at the heart of the book?
and of life.
Cixous: You are against death and fiercely for life. But otherwise.
in the translation
As for titles, I had to do my mourning
Dis/quietedly.
of Portrait de Jacques Derrida en jeune saint juif. In en jeune saint juif, "as a
H?l?ne
have
can
saint,"
young
en
heard
be
liked for the monkey

Derrida:
Jacques
remain
or
relationship,
are
We
two
rooted
in the French
culture
and
survived,
French
familiar,
strangely
with
relationship
more
untranslatable
uncanny)
lated
and
"as a young
but
's texts are translated
H?l?ne
untranslatable.
singe,
jeune
to have
the
language
many
than
the world,
who
those with
author.
strange
(unheimlich,
once
language?at
a French
but they
a
cultivate
strange
familiarly
French
than
that didn't work.
across
writers
I would
monkey."
more
We
ancestral
trans
are more
roots
in this
this land.
From
the Word
to Life
that you describe beginning with the word can appear very
the contrary, both of you write books that are marked
by
therefore by life itself: words bring back to life.]
autobiography,
[The process
abstract. To
Derrida:
Jacques
fictional
and
even
singular,
there
books,
graphical?if
Circumfession,
Since
fantastical,
familial,
are
they
The
Le pr?nom de Dieu, H?l?ne's

fantasmatic,
history.
certainly,
For me
no
biographical
are
at all?in
Monolingualism
hints
another
of
but
books
also
enriched
it is very different!
or
signals.
manner.
the Other,
etc.,
have
been
by
her
In my first
are
autobio
They
is very
late, with
or less
in a more
that,
It
to what is called "my life." The "I" has a

references
style, Imade
fictive status there, of course, but which
is different
from that which
it
had in my first texts where I said "I" or "we" in the abstract fashion of the
or classical
are thus very
theoretician.
Our
trajectories
philosopher
between
the "word" and "life,"
different, with regard to the relationship
and to the life of the word.
fictive
NEW
LITERARY
HISTORY
even if everything
I have written
Cixous: Nonetheless,
is thought
I
I
from
have
find
had,
myself
through
experiences
relatively absent
to be autobiographical.
from my texts considered
The essential part of
secret. Iwrite from this tension between
what I have been is completely
what is hidden and what comes about, that is, the book. The book comes
H?l?ne
it has a power superior to that of the person who believes

she is
the book. My books are stronger than I am, they escape me. They
to me,
writing
me
submit
to
translation.
Derrida:
Jacques
vein
graphical"
ever
But
irrigates
since
an
first
your
the
books,
stratum
underground
so-called
that
if it gives birth to an immense

familial mythology:
the brother.
always there, the "true" father! And
"autobio
is absolute,
even
the dead father is

Later there is the
mother.
I don't deny that the family is there, but my family is not

Cixous:
as my mother
In addition
it is my invention,
says. And it is the
causes Greek
structure
is
of
human
It
that
which
every
being.
primitive
a mythical
on the
from
I
it
is
construction
which
reflect
tragedy,
destinies of all human beings. As for you, your philosophical
problematics
H?l?ne
all me.
are
sorts
psyche,
of
is you
letters
Jacques
above
in passion,
after
All
veil.
written
Derrida:
all
and
otherwise
is a transparent
unknown
genre
Iwould
the
to do,
It has
self-portraits.
your body
fact,
always
more
naked
books
your
The
so, but
on
an
the
if itwere
your
soul,
behind
being
Rousseau,
constitute
and
"interiorly
hope
than
with
already,
your dislocations.
your
autobiography
your
your
philosophy
of
an
skin."
true, itwill have been
so
retrospectively.
as the presence
[Is what H?l?ne Cixous describes
texts an element of this autobiography
Derrida's
of the body in Jacques

of an unknown genre?]
In all of his texts a naivete ismanifest,

native.
something
of his body as a stigmatized body, a body of
the autobiography
blood and of signs. He had the extraordinary
audacity to show that the
can only be brought
all
his
that
writes
with
philosopher
body,
philosophy
into this world by a being in flesh in blood in sex in sweat, in sperm and
H?l?ne
Cixous:
He writes
and scarifica
in tears, with all his physical and psychic circumcisions
and unprecedented.
This stranjewish body which
tions. It is unique,
fears
trembles
climaxes
and
triumphs
reveals
what
it hides.
He
cannot
lie.
DERRIDA
BETWEEN
DIALOGUE
AND
CIXOUS
of Truth
The Values
's friendship
Derrida: You see what H?l?ne
gives me: she is
never
I
lie.
Even when
I lie
thinks
the
who
only person
undoubtedly
a bit less), I
like everyone,
(which I have to do sometimes,
perhaps
Jacques
remain
to
(according
the value
questions
so much
so
or
skeptic
that
here),
explain
from
so.
saying
It's
twice
when
me,
no
in
power
it at
courage
who
and
least,
always
of "values of truth"),
of
to be
could
is an
it
"true"
that I
meaning
torture
defiance,
to be
course,
to me
different
no
the world,
or
someone
be
appears
something
an altogether
about
to
about
wrongly
this word
not
taken
is a history
(there
consider
enemies
However,
(but I am now giving

cannot
thinks
of history
my
nihilist.
who
truth,
it to questions
submits
I am
innocent.
her)
of
keep
irresistible
me
to interrogate
in a critical manner
the work of a
am
I
of
risk
I
I
conscious
the
take
can't
but
keep myself
respected author,
it
it: when something
should be said, it is said. And when
from doing
If I have
impulse.
passes
H?l?ne
give
no
me,
through
can
dam
contain
it.
Cixous: This procedure

[d?marche] of truth is for me the gift you
to humanity.
In reading you we learn that the truth is always a bit
on.
further
From
the
where
place
arrive,
you
you
set
off
again,
you
take
yourself back up, you relaunch yourself, you do not sit the truth on your
knees. Truth makes you tick [La v?rit? tefait marcher] in all the senses of
the word.6 It's also the law of writing: one can only write in the direction
of that which does not let itself be written and which one must
try to
write.
I can write
What
is already
it
written,
always head towards the most frightening.

I write towards what
thrilling but painful.
a
always
jardin d'Essai, but it is an infernal,
Between
Derrida:
Jacques
If one
request
and
expelling
is
what
one
pardonable,
not
does
interest.
garden.
Impossible
to the theme of
again
one
only when
pardons what
pardons
for
pardon,
of
longer
is what makes writing

I dream about it. It is
come
We
is possible
Pardoning
pardon.
or
a
Possible
is no
This
I flee.
in
exchange
pardon.
the
impossible.
is impossible to
for
repentance
is
Pardoning
only
Therefore
the possibility depends on the
possible for the impardonable.
for
the
This
also
goes
impossible.
gift, hospitality. Unconditional
hospi
is
But
it
is
the
tality
impossible.
only hospitality
possible and worthy of
the name. I could give any number of concepts obeying
the same logic,
of impossibility.
where the only possibility of the thing is the experience
If one
does
only
what
one
can
do,
what
is within
one's
power,
one
only
10
NEW
the
develops
To
program.
true
of
must
something
in
experience
than
cross through the impossibility

there is no more
responsibility
For
general.
or
something
An
be
follows
what
can
one
of the decision.
to take. This is
someone
event
HISTORY
one
oneself,
to do more
it is necessary
one must
to decide,
do. To decide,
If I know what
are within
which
possibilities
do
LITERARY
to
it
arrive,
as
is possible
absolutely
only
unanticipateable.
"I can [je peux]." I often write "impossible" with a
impossible,
beyond
to suggest
im- and possible,
that this word
is not
between
hyphen
use
it. The im-possible
is the condition
in the way I
of possibility
negative
of the gift, of the pardon, of writing. When
of the event, of hospitality,
on the horizon,
it is already over. Therefore
it
is foreseen,
something
This
does not happen.
is also a political
reflection:
the
what
only
available sch?mas fail to foresee happens.
where
H?l?ne Cixous: Responsibility,
an absolute and blind responsibility.
Derrida:
Jacques
me
me.
before
you situate
of the other,7
It is the responsibility
the
Of
it and as you evoke
the
[How is power
exercised
Derrida:
Jacques
is
what
irreducibly
can
to the other
she
before
cannot
You
destiny.
whom
with
It is a certain
as
other,
only
I am
but of the other
in
as me.
other
It is an absolute yes to the other,

H?l?ne Cixous:
of which you cannot measure
take on something
effects,
it, is
do
totally blind. You

the
the development,
otherwise.
regard
to the impossible?]
powerlessness
or
heterogeneous
the form
of
take
and
[im-puissance],
as someone
vulnerable,
other
The
powerlessness.
I can not
whom
even
to
exposure
else.
deny.
Exposure
is he
I can
or
not
the alterity of the other, who will always remain on the other side,
nor can I deny his or her alterity. I can not say that I open the doors, that
is unconditional
there. That
I invite the other:
the other
is already
even
to
to
in the narrow
the
and
ethical
law,
(foreign
politics
hospitality
not
and
invitation.
other
has already
of
visitation
The
sense). Hospitality
even
not
and the
if
he
is
Between
invited.
the
conditional
entered,
and
in general,
unconditional
there is at once radical heterogeneity
we
to
have
deal
This
is
what
with.
indissociability.
access
H?l?ne
acquiescence:
a
power
me,
For me,
Cixous:
what
that
this exposure
translates,
accepts
for
submission,
you,
to the other
in
terms
infinite
of
takes
the form
powerlessness,
acceptation.
of
is, for
Jacques
but
H?l?ne
an
rather
11
of
simple
of
resignation,
abandonment.
You arrive
Cixous:
CIXOUS
a powerlessness
It's not
Derrida:
weakness,
AND
DERRIDA
BETWEEN
DIALOGUE
you were
where
(to yourself)
not expecting
(yourself).
in a sentence
this verb used by H?l?ne
the
with
life, conjugated
impossible?]
[How is the puisse,

length in H.C. for
at
you analyze
Puisse is one of these precious

of the
possibilities
are
to
I
transform
and
which
which
me,
put into
given
language
a logic of the efficacy of such a puisse. A
to
I
tried
elaborate
play:
about
the
here, bringing
operates
subjunctive
something
through
Jacques
French
simple
Derrida:
utterance
its power,
of
more
and
one
language,
codes
and
the
vow.
Puisse
in the text. The
that happens
than
other
must
conventions,
anticipate,
which
cela
arriver.
that
"May
of this puisse
singularity
For
performative.
master
the
to be
there
conditions,
a
to
neutralizes,
happen"?and
is, in its puissance,

performative
agree
certain
the
upon
the
degree,
The puisse
irruptivity of the event. The pure event defies performativity.
at work in H?l?ne
's texts, this strange subjunctive, which
is thus neither
an imperative nor an indicative,
is situated on this tangential
line which
I follow between
I try to think otherwise
the possible and the impossible.
us
to Hegel, bequeathed
what the philosophical
tradition, from Aristotle
to the possible.
to think otherwise
with regard
It is necessary
the
of the impossible. This looks like a sort of verbal facility or
possibility
it is for me the most serious issue in the world.
playful paradox;
to the Secret
The Right
[The theme of the secret occupies both of you: if one must

how then can the secret be protected?]
H?l?ne
secrets.
secreted
dreams.
Cixous:
There
away
There
are many
There
is the
that
is a
secret
secrets.
about
which
I have
no
trace
secret
that
is
of
The
word
I know
secret
so
nothing,
it, except
known
something
let texts come,
in
maybe
and
is full of
secret
the
hidden,
and
form
of
impos
sible to reveal because

the revelation would bring about the destruction
of the secret thing, and also of life. The unknown of this secret is buried
in night and silence: we will never know the face itwould have if it could
appear. The thing Aboutwhichlknownothing
[Dontjenesaisrien] remains
secret,
effort
this
gift
to oneself
[don]
which
makes
me
who
I am.
in the dark: an act of despair
One
because
writes
like
we know
a rescue
there
is
12
NEW
a treasure
we
to which
ourselves!
And
never
will
yet we
access.
have
How
LITERARY
HISTORY
we
ignorant
are
about
sign.
Derrida: This is an inexhaustible

theme. I am the inheritor, the
a very grave secret to which
I do not myself have access.
of
depository
The word or the writing
that I send into the world transports a secret
to me but that leaves its traces in all my texts,
that remains inaccessible
Jacques
I do or live. I have often
in what
one
marrano,
who
cultivated
what
knowing
political
point
of
those
force,
by
like a
barely playing,
in
and
Spain
Portugal,
in secret, at times to the extent of not

their Judaism
it consisted
in. This theme has also interested me from a
a State does not respect the right to the
of view. When
it becomes
secret,
Jews
myself,
presented
converted
violence,
police
threatening:
totalitarian
inquisition,
ism. I take the right to the secret to be an ethical and political

right.
Now, literature opens this privileged place where one can say everything
the secret having been betrayed: due to the
and avow everything without
status of the literary work, even if I reveal to you the truth of my
fictional
can
secret, I
always claim, by right, without being refuted, that "it is not
Iwho speaks in my name." This poses again the question of the "proper
name." Who
right to say everything.
speaks? Literature has this political
It's there, it's published,
but nobody can trust it, because
it is fiction: I
as is the case in all so-called
lied, invented,
deformed,
may have
autobiographical
in order
times
can
never
even
is
prove?what
that,
consciously
would
not be
to deny,
able
weave
immense
or
called
and
"true"
someone
proving?that
anything?weaves
can
One
democracy.
someone
Some
transformed.
more
powerful,
avowing
unconsciously,
exploits
truth.
lied.
We
This
link
certainly
literature
of
object
which
a ruse to be
this thing in itself, but a strategic function,
to avow without
But
if
literature
is only an
avowing.
of
what
symptoms,
From
Freud
psychoanalysts.
it is stronger
them,
teach
more
without
everything
literature
and
between
principle
powers
is deformed
truth
an
say
right?to
nates
texts.
to access
than
singular
to Lacan,
them.
symptomatology!
this
symptomatology
avowed:
"It is the
Freud
It fasci
over
poets
who
me."
Cixous: In front of the book there is a door. The inspired reader

the thing
opens it, we think we enter. But the text works to dissimulate
in its folds and the author can do nothing about it.He would give his life
to discover
it. Literature
is tragic, panicked by the necessity of pursuing
H?l?ne
the
secret
book
but
in vain.
In
the
is a letter on the run
secret,
its mission
secretes
secrets.
surpasses
end
the
book
[lettre d?faite].
it. As
soon
Literature
as
one
is no
there
escapes,
writes
owes
to
end.
The
its life to the

exhume
one
DIALOGUE
I am
close
erotic
event,
negative.
love
itself.
roots
and
is
can
an
Latin:
of
to other
could
continual
reach
author
possible
must
we
But
according
state
13
even
other,
is not
It makes
Cixous: We
in a
the
therefore
French,
H?l?ne
to
secret
the
ecstasy,
speak
is not
CIXOUS
of
The secret is tied to what we said of the truth?and
itself.
It is not only that which one hides. It is existence
Jacques Derrida:
the im-possible.
However
AND
DERRIDA
BETWEEN
secernere
sa
not
in Greek
it
constantly
interruption
the
encounter,
is told
from
other
or German.
the secret
add secretion:
We
separated.
This
the
?]
secret
the
forget,
semantics
is
separate.
chance
or
"communion"
fusioning
The
other
is to
[donne
secretion,
its
in
revealed.
is not a diamond,
itself:
augments
it
never
heights.
In Un ver ? soie, which I published

in Veils, face to face
Jacques Derrida:
text (Savoir), which I had just
[en regard], if Imay say so, with H?l?ne's
a trajectory
command
read, the figures of the secret and of secretion
a
to
of
the
South
America, my
journal
wholly
"autobiographical":
trip
the tallith (the shawl
"history of truth," childhood,
religion, Judaism,
that Jewish men, and not Jewish women, must wear). This is just a recent
of all the sharing and separating
example
[partages] that we can only
evoke
here.
by Ashley
Translated
Thompson
NOTES
a secret, but also to
to whisper,
to breathe,
including when one whispers
Souffler means
or to tell
to whisper
such that the expression
la parole souffl?e can mean
either
the word
the forgotten
(someone)
(the secret word,
word) or to take or steal the word.?
steal,
Trans.
2
Cixous
is working
"theft."?Trans.
and
here
on
the bivalence
of
the word
means
vol, which
both
"flight"
The agr?gation is the highest

level French national
academic
is referring
exam; Cixous
to the oral part, which
to the public.?Trans.
is traditionally
open
on
4
(celle qu'on ne passe pas)," (read at a conference
"Quelle heure est-il, ou La porte
:Autour du travail de
at Cerisy-la-Salle
Derrida
in 1992),
in Le passage des fronti?res
Jacques
Derrida
(Paris :Galil?e,
1994), 83-98.?Trans.
5
The
letter
"C" in French
under
the translation
published
6
Faire marcher means
to make
is a homophone
of "c'est," "it is," such
H. C. for life could also be rendered H,
tick, to make
walk,
leg.?Trans.
7
This expression,
la responsabilit? de Vautre, plays
"the other's
and "the responsibility
responsibility"
sense
is reinforced
responsible
by
the
common
expression
to give orders,
on
for
the double
the other."
?tre responsable
that the book
title,
it isfor life.?Trans.
but also to pull (one's)
to signify
genitive
In French
this
de, meaning
for."?Trans.
both
latter
"to be

From The Word To Life - A Dialogue Between Jacques Derrida and Hélène Cixous

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From the Word to Life: A Dialogue between Jacques Derrida and Hlne Cixous

From the Word to Life: A Dialogue between

who do not read me reproach me at times for

and for me,

lated together. Yes, for H?l?ne

tone." The preparation

several writing practices. One

New Literary History, 2005, 37: 1-13

that silently gets deeper and deeper

a result I am at the mercy of their

the two of you has lasted for forty years. Did

It would be difficult for me to evoke here, in improvis

survives intact. I remember

for her in the course

was at the Sorbonne,

It was a sort of prophetic

time and about Joyce. We

step by step around

one has to see otherwise.

seen. Unheimlich. The

From a certain point of view, that of writing itself, if I

Jews, from Algeria

The Postcard, Monolingualism

of the Other, Circumfession,

as could be. Our altercations

this didn't escape everyone. My strange and stormy passion for

through her origins, which are not only Sephardic

and which for me is German.

years old and suddenly my father was a lieutenant-doctor,

called the Cercle Militaire.

for me. One

of these books was placed under

even of the henceforth. We

our title to nobility

I often played. This Garden

takes off from a word

a poem with nothing

his books. While

texts are engendered

been much more

that the sentence

to idiom. The body of

texts than the French themselves,

am I "for life" like her. This discord

life, etc. It is the

is at the heart of the book?

liked for the monkey

's texts are translated

that didn't work.

Le pr?nom de Dieu, H?l?ne's

to what is called "my life." The "I" has a

it has a power superior to that of the person who believes

if it gives birth to an immense

the dead father is

I don't deny that the family is there, but my family is not

true, itwill have been

of the body in Jacques

In all of his texts a naivete ismanifest,

(but I am now giving

Cixous: This procedure

always head towards the most frightening.

is what makes writing

cross through the impossibility