Has anyone read the Laughter of Medusa by Elena Sisu? How do you feel after reading it?

Elena Sisu is one of the most influential novelists, dramatists and literary theorists in contemporary France. In France, Britain, America and other countries, she is famous for her many experimental creations and groundbreaking theories. 1967, she published her first novel "pen name". 1969, the inside story of the novel (DeDanes; ; The English translation, 1986) was published and won the prize. Since then, she has published about 50 novels and plays, as well as a large number of feminist works, including many papers, such as Lajeune Né e (1975; English version of the newly born woman, 1986), the laughter of medusa (Le Rire de la Méduse,1975; The Laughter of Medusa in English, 1976), from the unconscious scene to the historical scene (de la Scè ne de l 'Inconsiveà la Scè ne de l 'histoire,1986; The English version "From Uncertain Scenes to Historical Scenes" (1989) has attracted great attention in the international academic circles and is recognized as the representative of the French feminist school, which keeps pace with Julia Kristeva and Lucy Iligret.

Sisu is an unusual writer and theorist. She expresses her thoughts and feelings in a brand-new way. No matter in novel creation or theoretical writing, she is good at combining argument with lyricism in her writing, and her language is vivid, poetic and imagery, with great anti-rational color. Her autobiographical exposition in From Unconscious Scene to Historical Scene is an example. Here, she reveals how writing connects herself with others, and how writing is integrated with her body, family, culture, ethnic identity, gender, sense of alienation and her mystery beyond language:

My writing was born in Algeria, a country that lost my father and foreign mother. These characteristics may be opportunities or misfortunes, which have become the driving force and opportunity for my writing. I was born here and now, and I was fortunate enough to have experienced exoticism, exile, war, illusory peace memories, sadness and pain. When I was three years old, I knew that people might kill people because of a name and a little difference among flowers. At the same time, I also learned about the existence of leaving my hometown. But it is also good to leave home. I should also tell you a date, such as 1940. I see that the roots of human beings have no boundaries, and the human heart is just under the earth, beating at the bottom of the world ladder.

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My first fortune was the name of the city where I was born: Oran. This is my first class. I heard the name "Oran", through which I entered the mysterious language world. By entering, my "crossing the border" happened again. I found that just adding "I" behind my city means fruit. Oran Jay Orange. I found that this word has all the secrets of fruit. I want you to combine and decompose this name endlessly and explain it. Then I lost Oran. Then I got it back: white and gold, the eternal land in my memory and I didn't go back. In order to keep it, it became my writing. Just like my father, it became a magic door to another world. "

Ralph Cohen, in the preface of his famous collection of essays "The Future of Literary Theory", quoted this passage from "From Unconscious Scenes to Historical Scenes" by Xisu as the beginning of the collection, and praised Xisu for "writing theoretically with the lyrical consciousness of the position that writing occupies in her life, which can make survival possible regardless of whether writing may create heaven or hell for her".

Indeed, Susie's life experience has made her writing, and writing also constitutes an indispensable part of her life. 1June 5, 937, Sisu was born in colonial Algeria, his father was Jewish, and many relatives were Jewish. In World War II, she witnessed the massacre of Jews by German fascists. Her childhood experience had a permanent and profound influence on her world outlook and writing. The power rule and political terror she encountered in her childhood made her eager to get rid of the suffocating environment and reality. Writing was like a bright glimmer on the dark road for her. She has been writing since the 1960s. For her, writing always means being saved in a certain way: "Writing is a question about life and saving. Writing follows life, extends life, listens to life and remembers life. Writing is a question of never giving up meditation on life. " In the process of writing, she gained freedom and found the value of survival.

More importantly, her childhood experience also inspired her to always use the pen in her hand as a weapon, resist all forms of power and its suppression and infringement on human spirit and body, and seek complete liberation of spirit and body. As she herself said in From Unconscious Scene to Historical Scene, her text is "full of people who suffer, who fall to the ground or struggle to stand up."

Her political and ideological position made her respond positively to the Pierre Goethe-Mann case that stirred up the whole of France in the 1970s, and published UN K. In Compre Impossible: Pierre Goldman, 1975, which not only accused Goethe-Mann of injustice, but also raised the issue of racial discrimination in French judicial departments.

Because of her sensitivity to privileges in the social system, she tried to explore the oppression and exclusion of power in family, politics and academic fields and its reappearance in literary works from a historical perspective. She read a lot of ancient Greek, Roman mythology and western literature. She published a highly academic book, The Exile of James Joyce (L 'Exil de James Joyce ou1'art du relocation,1968; 1972 English translation of James Joyce's exile). Although Joyce's thoughts on the importance of language and music to literature and the combination of spirit and flesh inspired her, she opposed Joyce's theory of death and insisted that although death was inevitable, life was the most important thing-her affirmation of life rather than death was different from that of many contemporary writers. When commenting on the essays of Freud, Poe and Joyce (Prénoms de personne, 1974), she further criticized Joyce and other male writers for equating women with death, pointing out that these writers confined women to a "narrow economic system" through language. In "The Laughter of Medusa", she once again pointed out: "Men say that there are two things that cannot be expressed: death and women. That's because they need to associate death with women. "

Her sensitivity to unfair social phenomena prompted her to actively support and promote the cause of women's liberation. Especially from 1975 to 1977, she published a series of papers and works with the theme of female writing, and discussed many feminist issues such as female texts, femininity, female writing and female liberation. These exhibitions include "Newborn Young Women" (1975) and "The Laughter of Medusa" (1975), and "Euler's Sex? , 1976), talking about writing (La veneàl 'écriterion, 1977), etc. Toril Mowa, a famous feminist critic, commented: "Thanks to the efforts of Elena Sissou, the issue of' critical feminism' was able to occupy a central position in French political and cultural discussions in the 1970s."