“I wish for two things: that happening turn to writing, and that writing be happening”

The two-wish epigraph attributed to Michel Leiris presents writing as both the transformation of experience and a form of experience in its own right. Its paired propositions make the movement reciprocal: what happens can become writing, and writing can itself happen.

The Reciprocal Movement

The formulation does not describe writing as a passive record added after an event. Its first movement turns happening into written form; its second gives writing the force of something occurring. Together, they place lived experience and literary expression in a continuing exchange rather than a simple sequence of event followed by record.

Attribution and Significance

The attribution to Michel Leiris identifies the words as an epigraph. Their compact, balanced structure establishes a principle for reading the work: writing is connected to what has happened, but it also possesses an event-like reality of its own. The two wishes therefore hold preservation and creation together without reducing either to the other.