Incinarration

Incinarration is a genre-defying book by Hélène Cixous, translated by Peggy Kamuf, that travels through fire. It moves across time from the Second World War and the Nazi-era occupation of Oran to the European wildfires of 2022, and it weaves history, autobiography and myth into one intimate narrative.

Cixous, a French writer born in Oran, writes in a lyrical voice about the human cost of destruction and upheaval. She asks a question meant for everyone: what do we carry with us when everything we know is turning to ash?

The book finds hope in words, memory and imagination, which can light up dark moments and help redeem the future. While forests burn and regimes collapse, stories become a form of resistance, a way to remember, to bear witness and to find renewal in the face of oblivion.