Jacques Derrida’s Life as an Algerian Jew Revealed in Newly Translated Bio

The philosopher’s influential legacy is reshaped by the part of his life story that is often overlooked

 
By Scott Krane for Tablet Magazine

“Writing a biography means living through an intimate and sometimes intimidating adventure,” writes Benoît Peeters in his newly translated biography of Jacques Derrida, who would have turned 83 today. But what is the difference between the biography of a living man and a dead man? In the Introduction to Derrida, published in France in 2010 and now beautifully translated into English by Andrew Brown, French artist, critic, and author Peeters writes, “Whatever happens, Jacques Derrida will not be part of his own life, like a sort of posthumous friend. A strange one-way friendship that he would not have failed to question.” The author continues in the book’s introduction: “I am convinced of one thing: there are biographies only of the dead. So every biography is lacking its supreme reader: the one who is no longer there. If there is an ethics of biographers, it can perhaps be located here: would they dare to stand, book in hand, in front of their subject?”

Peeters is pleased that his book is now appearing in English. “My biography of Derrida, the first to be based on research work first-hand, was very well received when it was published in France,” Peeters told me in a recent interview. “And Derrida as a thinker is reflected in the world; it was logical that my book be translated. The United States played a decisive role in the reception of deconstruction. It is therefore not surprising that the English translation was the first to appear,” he said. Soon, he added, there will be translations available in German and Spanish, as well as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

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