An interview with André Rollin, “Je n’écris pas sans lumiere artificielle,” was first published in Le fou parle 21/22 (November/December 1982) and reprinted in Ils écrivent: Ou? Quand? Comment? edited by André Rollin (Paris: Editions Mazarine, 1986), 145–52.

Rue d’Ulm, École normale supérieure, is the place where Jacques Derrida teaches, where he leaves his “trace.” Philosopher, writer, he deepens, he fixes from book to book, the word “writing.” His research can be found in Of Grammatology, Clang, The Post Card, Writing and Difference, Positions, Margins of Philosophy.

At the beginning of Clang—in the right column— Derrida writes: “Each little square is delimited, each column cut out with impassive smugness, and yet the element of contagion, the infinite circulation of general equivalence brings each phrase, each word, each stump of writing (for example “je m’ ec … “) back to each of the others, within each column and from one column to the other of the infinitely calculable what remained.”

So: Derrida. Jacques Derrida: May I first tell you something about the reasons why I hesitated … André Rollin: Of course. JD: … to respond to these questions in this setting? First, it was by a kind of … not distrust, but reserve with respect to a certain imagery complacently held by writers, on the one hand, and by those who exploit this imagery on the other.