Jeremy Fernando

The Suicide Bomber; and Her Gift of Death Jeremy Fernando

This book is an attempt to defend the undefendable: the suicide bomber as a figure of thinking, a figure that foregrounds the singularity of each event; and it is this un-understandability-which is part of understanding itself-that the suicide bomber never lets us forget. For, the suicide bomber is the poet par excellence, reminding us of the possibility of an event; not because of the effects of her actions, but due to the gift of her life, and more importantly the unknowability that is her death. And like with poetry, all analysis only makes it worse. In this manner, (s)he remains an unending question for us; a question that even questions itself as a question. And if one maintains the question, one is always already other to everything, other even to one's self. In this way, the gap between the self and the other is maintained such that this space is never taken hostage. For, the moment this space of negotiation is gone, we are in the realm of terror.

"Jeremy Fernando's The Suicide-Bomber; and her gift of death calls for the ability to respond to intentional death. It is a brilliant study about the blank spot within the becoming of teleology, and the game of 'finitude'." -- Hubertus von Amelunxen

Jeremy Fernando is the Jean Baudrillard Fellow at the European Graduate School. He works in the intersections of literature, philosophy, and the media; and is the author of Reflections on (T)error, and Reading Blindly. He is also a Research Fellow at the Centre for Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.