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Pregnant Pause: On Ona Šimaitė, Research, Writing, and Motherhood
- Feminist Formations
- Johns Hopkins University Press
- Volume 22, Issue 2, Summer 2010
- pp. 1-17
- 10.1353/ff.2010.0001
- Article
- Additional Information
This article examines the riddle (following Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Virginia Woolf, Alice Walker, Nancy Huston, and Hélène Cixous) of how to be a mother and writer. Through its portrayal of a writer-researcher's relationship both to the deceased Ona Šimaitė, a Holocaust rescuer (her biographical subject), and to the baby she is carrying, the article poses the question: Is there room for both life and death inside a new mother? Will the birth of a child forever displace the writer's companion, this beloved ghost? Or will the trio of mother-baby-ghost, writer-life-death successfully establish a balance? Process-oriented, conversational, and self-reflexive, this article situates itself within and engages the tradition of feminist life-writing and biography.