Helene Cixous

Hélène Cixous was born in Oran, Algeria, on June 5, 1937. She described her father's background as 'Sephardic - Spain - Morocco - Algeria' and her mother's as 'Ashkenazy - Austria - Hungary - Czechoslavakia (her father) and Spain (her mother)'. She studied at the Université de Bordeaux, the Sorbonne, and the new, experimental post-1968 Université de Paris VIII-Vincennes. Her doctoral thesis, L'Exil de James Joyce ou l'art du remplacement was published in 1968 (as The Exile of James Joyce in 1972). His first novel was Inside (1969). Her best known works are The Newly Born Woman (written with Catherine Clément) and the inspiring essay "The Laugh of the Medusa" (both 1975). In feminist theory, Cixous' most influential works have been The Newly Born Woman, "The Laugh of the Medusa", and "Castration or Decapitation".

By 1991, Hélène Cixous had written some 50 novels, plays, books of poetry, essays and texts (today it's 70+ works, and includes: 23 poetry books, 5 plays and 6 books of essays). She has been aligned with the French publishing house Des Femmes, and collaborated with the experimental Théâtre du Soleil (Cixous has worked for years with the theatre director Ariane Mnouchkine). Cixous' plays include Black Sail, White Sail, Portrait of Dora, Drums On the Dam and The Perjured City.

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Hélène Cixous became the most frequently cited of French feminists and feminist philosophers. Following Angst (1977), Cixous' feminism became more militant (as with many other feminists), and was associated with the Politique et Psychoanalyse ('Psych et Po') women's political group, founded by Antoinette Fouque. Cixous felt she had reached an intellectual limit, and needed to immerse herself in the politics of relationships between women.

Hélène Cixous' prose works of the Eighties included La Bataille d'Arcachon (1987), concerning the relations between love, presence and absence, the self and alterity; Manne aux Mandelstams aux Mandelas (1988) was about the Russian poet, Osip Mandelstam, who died in the Stalin era, and Nelson Mandela; Entre l'écriture (1986) is a collection of writing about writing; Jours de l'an (1990) concerns notions of authorship, the relationship between the writer and writing.

The text has been revised and updated for this edition.

Illustrated, with a revised text. European Writers Series. Bibliography and notes. 176pp. ISBN 9781861714190. www.crmoon.com