Anonymity and Signature as a Productive Practice: Ingeborg Bachmann and Jacques Derrida

Abstract

Peer reviewed article. Ingeborg Bachmann is an Austrian author whose last novel Malina was published in 1971. She began working on Malina in 1966/67, and the novel forms part of the trilogy ‘Ways of death’. Malina is a complex novel. The story is set in Vienna and presents three protagonists: the first-person narrator who is an anonymous woman, her lover Ivan and her doppelganger and male-alter-ego Malina. Remarkably, the female narrator does not reveal her name until the end of the novel, whereas the male figures Ivan and Malina are referred to by their names throughout the story. Therefore, the question arises: why does the narrator remain anonymous?