The Return of the Author

Abstract

This article will discuss Întoarcerea Autorului (The Return of the Author), published for the first time in Communist Romania in 1981, and, after 1990, in France and the United States, republished in post-Communist Romania in 1993, 2005, and 2013, the fourth edition. The article will try to follow the historical and cultural background for the volume and its subsequent editions to answer the question who is the author of the “return of the author”? I will point to the implicit and explicit dialogue of the 1981 book with other books dealing with the same topic and perceive their coincidences – with reference to Sean Burke, Dominique Maingueneau, Antoine Compagnon and Valentine Cunningham. I will focus on one of the most important and daring ideas of this book (which can be retraced afterwards, in Reading after Theory by Cunningham): those critics who proclaim the death of the author have proved to be the most authorial and authoritarian of all. Within the broader context of author studies, I will outline the characteristic features of the 1981 book and the actuality of Simion’s critical position.

Keywords

• author theory
• death of the author
• return of the author
• deconstructivism
• post-theory