"It is a matter of returning the gift of the hospitality of the discourses. When we get on to khora as pandekhes, beyond all anthropomorphy, we shall perhaps glimpse a beyond of the debt."

– Jacques Derrida, Khora

In April of 2000 I invited a number of friends and colleagues to contribute to an issue dedicated to Jacques Derrida. I asked them to contribute with work in progress, reminiscences, essays – not necessarily "on Jacques Derrida." The genre was not defined, but the gesture, in a way, in its unique purpose, was. The response was overwhelming, in spite of, in a large number of cases, very limited time given to some of the participants to respond. So, the following is, or as Jacques Derrida likes to say, will have been, maybe, a gift. Not a gift "in return," an outcome of a predictable economy. The following essays are more an attempt to respond to Jacques Derrida's generous offer: for it seems that all his lectures and writing, over the years, apart from their tremendous philosophical importance, have also been, (or maybe have been first of all) an invitation to others, to write, work, celebrate, and participate in the space of affirmation, generosity and responsibility opened by his work. Certainly not by merely repeating or mimicking his ideas – as the essays in this volume attest to. Derrida's work opens up a space – a khora – where thinking and writing have, will have, found their affirmation. For me this aspect of Derrida's work has been, over the years, a source of unceasing fascination. This issue is an attempt – and I am sure that I can speak in the name of all the Khoraographers – among so many others, but especially on this date, in singular acts of friendship, to listen and try to respond to the call of this invitation.