Preface

There is no good way to write about suicide. This preface lays out some of the ethical, political, and hermeneutical stakes of writing about acts of self-destruction and self-disappearance. It explains the overall architecture and major theoretical frames of The Suicide Archive while inscribing the challenges and trespasses of writing about death, dispossession, and disappearance in contexts of unfreedom. Finally, it connects the historical axis of the book to contemporary forms of state violence and violent resistance, considering how the colonial past continues to haunt our ostensibly postcolonial moment.