The Burning Desire to Write. From Writing to the Lover
This essay, at the juncture of research and creation, explores the emergence of the desire to write in its relationship to the carnal desire of the lover, with the goal of shedding light on a part of Marguerite Duras’s creative process that is rooted in the desire to write of the young girl in L’Amant (1984, published in English as The Lover, 1986), whose face expresses pleasure. Writing, even rewriting, the story of the Chinese lover, first told in the novel Un Barrage contre le Pacifique (1950, published in English as The Sea Wall, 1952), and ultimately rewritten in L’Amant de la Chine du Nord (1991, published in English as The North China Lover, 2008) in response to Jean-Jacques Annaud’s film L’Amant / The Lover. This reading, both personal and intimate, will follow the thread of the desire to write and its double, carnal desire, within the story of the Chinese lover and its modulations, while borrowing from other examples drawn from the Durassian literary and filmic universe.