Introduction

Introduction A LTHOUGH LONG RECOGNIZED as a major artistic figure, Marguerite Duras suffered critical neglect for many years in France and even more so in the United States. Despite a fame that dates from the 1950 publication of Un Barrage contre lePacifique, and a steady stream of acclaim for her subsequent production in several crea­ tive media, until relatively recently, few serious studies were undertaken on an artist nevertheless greatly admired. This anomaly began to be cor­ rected in the post-structuralist period, with the advent of critical dis­ courses more equipped—and more willing—to approach Marguerite Duras. Contemporary criticism has discovered that many of its central preoccupations inform her production. Questions of voice and significa­ tion, difference and domination, subjectivity, style and gender are basic both to Duras and to post-modern critical analyses. On both sides of the Atlantic, the immense success of L ’Amant (1984; The Lover, 1985), with, in its wake, the reissuing of many of her out of print texts, especial­ ly in America, further sparked attention. Marguerite Duras has become the focus of intense interest, and her work has been eliciting diverse, even radically conflicting readings. Such hermeneutic divergence proves that modern criticism is far from monolithic in any of its branches, and attests to the complexity of the work of someone almost unanimously accepted as one of France’sgreatest contemporary artists. The pieces col­ lected in this volume offer a sampling of the range and variety of critical response to her work. In 1986 Tom Bishop of New York University and myself co­ organized a city-wide “Celebration of Marguerite Duras.” The first eight articles developed from presentations made during the proceedings held at New York University, under the title: “Text-Theater-Film; A Colloquium on Marguerite Duras.” I am indebted to Tom Bishop for his openness and encouragement from the inception of the project in 1985 to the present publication, and for his good offices in obtaining the opening text by Marguerite Duras herself. Susan D. Cohen Vo l . XXX, No. 1 5 ...