Leslie Scalapino

Laura Hinton (City College)

Ed. by Emory Elliott, University of California, Riverside
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

Born 25 Jul 1947
Died 28 May 2010
Activity 1975-2008

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Essayist
Novelist
Poet

Resources

Scalapino's Works

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At the beginning of her “Autobiography” (2003), Leslie Scalapino quotes Paul de Man's deconstructive account of the relation between autobiography and life: “We assume that life

produces

the autobiography as an act produces its consequences, but can we not suggest, with equal justice, that the autobiographical project may itself produce and determine the life . . .?” De Man's statement goes further to suggest that referentiality to the life behind and within the autobiography is an “illusion”, one made to the “the structure of the figure”. His reflection upon the importance of the figure is a telling opening for Scalapino's own personal testimony about the life in her writing, and the writing life. For Scalapino, the text and the life are intuitively mixed.

We can

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2408 words

Citation: Hinton, Laura. "Leslie Scalapino". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 January 2002; last revised 24 June 2022. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3949, accessed 03 December 2024.]