Julia Kristeva is professor emerita of linguistics at the Université de Paris VII. A renowned psychoanalyst, philosopher, and linguist, she has written dozens of books spanning semiotics, political theory, literary criticism, gender and sex, and cultural critique, as well as several novels and autobiographical works, published in English translation by Columbia University Press. Kristeva was the inaugural recipient of the Holberg International Memorial Prize in 2004 “for innovative explorations of questions on the intersection of language, culture, and literature.”Barbara Bray (1924–2010) was a leading translator of twentieth-century French literature into English, including works by Marguerite Duras, Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Anouilh, and Alain Robbe-Grillet.

Kristeva’s experimental novel is an iridescent gem glinting with psychoanalytic speculations, shards of myth and classical lore, and musings on death, hate, love and the imagination.

• Part I. The Invasion1. Whom Is One to Believe? Fear2. Nothing—That’s What He Thinks3. AnamorphosesPart II. Detective Story4. Neither More nor Less5. No Point in Shouting for Help6. Disparate EffectsPart III. Capriccio7. By the Throat8. Men of Sorrow9. Where’s the Crime?