Jalal Toufic is an amazing writer. He documents the moves of
consciousness in a way that leads the reader ever deeper, from
impasse to illusion to new impasse—turning the trap of
“what can’t be named” into a true paradise.
Both of his books [Distracted and (Vampires)]
knocked me out; totally original, totally fascinating.
Richard Foreman, six-time Obie winner and a MacArthur Fellow
Jalal Toufic is one of the best writers in America today.
Although fluent in French and Arabic, he has chosen English
as his language of expression and his first 2 books, Distracted
and (Vampires), are some of the best writing of the
past 20 years.
John Zorn, Film Works IV
Most theorists of cinema read, paradoxically, the avant-garde
from the perspective of mainstream narrative film, whether
unconsciously or not. This complex and disruptive, stylistically
heterogeneous and hermeneutically subversive text [Over-Sensitivity]
continues the project of Toufic’s earlier book, (Vampires):
An Uneasy Essay on the Undead in Film, in which the exigencies
of avant-garde film, conversely, inform a broader reading
of narrative structure, iconology, and epistemology. In this
context, the author undertakes (an irresistible pun) the study
of the previously neglected domain of narration from the
point of view of the dead, inaugurating a major theme
in which popular and traditional rituals intersect with the
avant-garde.
Allen S. Weiss, Sulfur 42, Spring 1998
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