Writing overcomes an author’s absence by making intention present at a distance.

Evidence

We understand writing to be a means of communication, a vehicle which can carry the words, and within them the ideas, of an author across the distance of time and space. Thanks to the mechanical efficiency of linguistic signification, an author’s intention or meaning can be made present to an audience despite his or her physical absence. In writing, the author’s absence is overcome. According to this understanding, printing, for example, is simply a more efficient means of overcoming absence. It provides a wider and more lasting representation of an author’s meaning. — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 470

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Connects to ‘Grafting & Growth: On Trees as Infrastructure’ tangentially through the theme of representation across distance; more directly connects to the book’s broader argument about presence and representation in colonial modernity.