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Monique Wittig, 67, Feminist Writer, Dies

By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: January 12, 2003

Monique Wittig, a French writer and literary theorist whose imaginative, fiercely innovative EMAIL

books tried to create a new mythology for the feminist movement, died Jan. 3 in Tucson. She PRINT
was 67 and lived in Tucson.

The cause was a heart attack, said Sande Zeig, her partner.

In her advocacy of a total rupture with masculine culture, she pulled no punches, forcefully
arguing, for example, that lesbians are not women because the word woman is constructed by
sexist society.

In one of her novels, female warriors torture men before tanning and displaying their skin. In
another, paradise is full of lesbians on motorcycles.

Ms. Wittig's startlingly rich imagery found its counterpart in her experimental literary approach:
she sometimes abandoned paragraphing and normal punctuation and developed a lyrical style
that could be called neither prose nor poetry.

Mary McCarthy, in her 1970 book ''The Writing on the Wall and Other Literary Essays,'' devoted
a chapter to Ms. Wittig's first novel, ''L'Opoponax'' (Simon & Schuster, 1966). Ms. McCarthy
called it ''the book I've argued for -- and about -- most of this year.''

In France, Ms. Wittig drew praise from writers like Marguerite Duras, Nathalie Sarraute and
Alain Robbe-Grillet. But in the United States she is probably best known among feminist
scholars, according to Contemporary Authors, a reference book.

Lambda Book Report suggested in 1990 that she was the most discussed but least read of all
contemporary lesbian authors.

Ms. Wittig was born July 13, 1935, in the Haut-Rhin region of Alsace. She earned a doctorate in
languages at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. She worked in Paris in
various semiacademic positions, including posts at the Bibliothèque Nationale and Les Éditions
de Minuit, where she was a proofreader. She later wrote radio dramas and became involved in
feminist protests.

''L'Opoponax'' appeared in France in 1964 and in American translation two years later. It
concerns children undergoing typical childhood experiences like the first day of school and the
first romance. It won the Prix Médicis literary award.

Naomi Bliven in The New Yorker called that book ''a charming feat of virtuosity,'' and Virgilia
Peterson in The New York Times Book Review said that Ms. Wittig had ''made what can only be
called a brilliant re-entry into childhood.''

Ms. Wittig's next novel, ''Les Guérillères,'' appeared in 1969 in France and in 1971 in English .
Sally Beauman in The Times Book Review called it ''perhaps the first epic celebration of women
ever written.''

In that novel women live as guerrillas, fighting men and seeking a new age. They engage in
bloody, victorious battles using knives, machine guns and rocket launchers. In one scene they

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 win by baring their breasts, stopping men in their tracks.

As was typical of Ms. Wittig's books, ''Les Guérillères'' provoked almost as many negative
reactions as positive ones. ''The book itself turns out to be, sadly, oddly, at times almost
maddeningly, quite dull,'' wrote Roger Sale in The New York Review of Books.

Ms. Wittig's other books were equally provocative. In ''The Lesbian Body'' (Morrow, 1975),
lesbian lovers literally invade each other's bodies as an act of love. In ''Across the Acheron'' (P.
Owen, 1987), the evil Count Zaroff and his men hunt women as game. In ''The Straight Mind and
Other Essays'' (Beacon, 1992) she compares lesbians to fugitive slaves.

In addition to Ms. Zeig, who lives in Tucson and Manhattan, Ms. Wittig is survived by her
mother, Maria Wittig, and her sister, Gilberte, both of Paris.

One of her last creations was a film made with Ms. Zeig, ''The Girl,'' released in 2001. It received
good reviews in the lesbian and gay press, and The New York Post called it ''the steamiest lesbian
romp in memory.''

Photo: Monique Wittig in the 1970's. (Mariza De Athayde/Caméra Press)

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