‘Ce qui est coupé repousse’: Jean Genet, Héléne Cixous, the Wound, and the Poetics of Omission

Abstract This article explores the thematic and structural significance of the figure of the wound to Jean Genet's Pompes funèbres (1947) and Hélène Cixous's Souffles (1975). With reference to the differences between editions of Pompes funèbres and through a detailed genetic study of the hitherto unexamined manuscripts of Souffles (Cixous's direct response to Genet's novel), the article demonstrates how (self-)censorship becomes constitutive of narrative as such — of its deconstruction and its reconfiguration. By revealing how the later drafts of Cixous's book operate to conceal its poignant autobiographical origin, and playing with the author's ambiguous assertion that ‘Ce qui est coupé repousse’, the article exposes omission as a productive textual strategy.