Raymond Federman (1928–2009) is known as a scholar of Samuel Beckett, postmodern theorist and avant-garde novelist. Like Beckett, he was also a self-translator, though unlike Beckett his first language was French and he composed his most significant works in English. In this sense, he took Beckett’s journey in reverse. Federman’s life was, in many ways, a Beckettian journey. He escaped deportation to Auschwitz, where all of his immediate family perished, thanks to his mother pushing him into a closet. Years of lonely wandering followed. Federman explicitly describes his own life in Beckettian terms, and his postmodern novels are thick with intertextual references, with Beckett as the main source. This book offers the first examination of these references, in light of Federman’s contribution to critical theory. 

This study is focused on Federman’s most significant novels, published between 1971 and 1982. Federman’s two tongues make for a doubled discourse, one in which the boundaries between English and French become porous. He uses fragments of Beckett, Joyce and others (including French poststructuralists) to undermine the gendered identity of his own autobiographical creations. Federman’s use of Beckett, his intertextual strategies and choices, highlight the queer potential of his master’s work.