"The modern theoretical re-evaluation of literature has given way to a renewed interest in religious questions. The religiously inflected critical inquiry of writers such as Geoffrey Hartman, Luce Irigaray, J. Hillis Miller, Terry Eagleton, and John Schad has developed this tradition." -- The Blackwell Companion to the Bible in English Literature *** "Schad reads as he dreams, or dreams as he reads." -- Derrida Today *** Hostage of the Word brings together a number of John Schad's very best uncollected essays, interleaved with a selection of autobiographical poems and a striking new work that brings together both critical and creative modes of writing. Hostage of the Word thus plots the intriguing trajectory of Schad's very distinctive work over the last 20 years - a trajectory that moves from a series of essays that juggle Christian, Marxist, and Derridean intuitions, through a radically literary engagement with Deconstruction, to a daringly critical-creative mode of writing. In this exciting new field, as in the more established world of literature and religion, Schad is an idiosyncratic and sometimes audacious pioneer. The book will be essential for critical-creative courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.