"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 thus plots the intriguing trajectory of Schad's very distinctive work over the last twenty 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. Hostage is to be published simultaneously in hardback and paperback to accommodate adoption on critical-creative courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels."--Publisher's website.