Few thinkers, in the latter half of the twentieth century, so profoundly and radically transformed our understanding of writing and literature as Jacques Derrida (1930–2004). Derrida's work on literary texts is intricate and challenging and has often been misunderstood or misrepresented. In this book, Leslie Hill provides an accessible introduction to Derrida's writings on literature which presupposes no prior knowledge of Derrida's work. He explores in detail Derrida's account of some of the leading literary figures of the last century and a half and explains why Derrida is neither a literary theorist nor a literary critic and why deconstruction is a rigorous and affirmative way with texts and textuality.

Leslie Hill is Emeritus Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick. His many publications include Maurice Blanchot and Fragmentary Writing (Continuum, 2012), Radical Indecision: Barthes, Blanchot, Derrida, and the Future of Criticism (Notre Dame UP, 2010) The Cambridge Companion to Jacques Derrida (CUP, 2007), Bataille, Klossowski, Blanchot: Writing at the Limit (OUP, 2001), Blanchot: Extreme Contemporary (Routledge, 1997) and Beckett's Fiction (CUP, 1990).

Preface; 1. Life; 2. Contexts; 3. Work; 4. Reception and further reading.