Jacques Derrida
Peter Salmon has written an accessible and interesting biography of Jacques Derrida.
Books by Jacques Derrida
“The bit called Jacques Derrida is written by Geoffrey Bennington, who was one of his main English translators. The bit called Circumfession is written by Derrida….One of the challenges that Derrida set Bennington was that Bennington wasn’t allowed to quote Derrida when he’s describing deconstruction…Most of the chapters start with a little quote from Augustine…. Augustine wrote about the death of his mother…Derrida is also writing about his own mother dying. So he’s drawing these parallels all the time, but also exploring the nature of what confession is, of what secrets are, and what sins are. He’s doing that down at the bottom of the text and, I think, writing very beautifully.” Read more...
The best books on Deconstruction
Peter Salmon, Philosopher
“you can’t really get around it when it comes to deconstruction. It is the urtext and it is also one of the books which either draws you into deconstruction and leaves you stuck there for years and years, or that pushes you away from deconstruction. It’s also one of those books that probably more people have claimed to have read—and not to have read—than virtually any other book other than Ulysses.” Read more...
The best books on Deconstruction
Peter Salmon, Philosopher
Interviews where books by Jacques Derrida were recommended
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1
Of Grammatology
by Jacques Derrida & translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak -
2
The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays
by Mikhail Bakhtin & translated by Michael Holquist and Caryl Emerson -
3
Jacques Derrida Circumfession
by Geoffrey Bennington & Jacques Derrida -
4
The Newly Born Woman
by Catherine Clément, Hélène Cixous & translated by Betsy Wing -
5
"53 Days"
by Georges Perec, translated by David Bellos
The best books on Deconstruction, recommended by Peter Salmon
The best books on Deconstruction, recommended by Peter Salmon
For the general reader deconstruction has a bad reputation. It is seen as over-complicating, arcane and wilfully obscure—but as its founding genius Jacques Derrida pointed out, “If things were simple, word would have gotten around.” Here Peter Salmon, author of an excellent new biography of Derrida, chooses five books to get you started on the text and everything inside it.
