Hélène Cixous

Hélène Cixous (b. 1937) is a writer and philosopher. Transgressing the limits of academic language by and with poetic language, she is widely lauded for both her writing style and her experimental practice, which traverses many discourses.

An influential theorist, as well as a novelist, playwright, and poet, Cixous has also initiated and developed new models of education. Much of her prominence developed around écriture feminine, a method and practice that addresses Cixous’s ongoing concern with the effects of difference, exclusion, and logocentrism.

These ideas were explored in her widely influential essay Le rire de la Méduse from 1975 [The Laugh of the Medusa]. This work is considered a key text within her concept of écriture feminine, and informs her advocacy for the freeing of writing, and the freeing of the self through writing.

The work of Cixous is very rich and extensive, which includes, among others, the following titles: L’Exil de James Joyce ou l’ art du remplacement (1968), Dedans (1969), Angst (1977), With ou l’art de l’innocence (1981), Le Livre de Promethea (1983), L’Heure de Clarice Lispector (1989), Insister. À Jacques Derrida (2006), Ayaï ! Le Cri de la littérature (2013), Homère est morte (2014), or Gare d’Osnabrük à Jérusalem (2016). She has been the recipient of several awards and honours, such as Prix Marguerite Duras (2014), Prix de la Langue Française (2014), and Officier de la Légion d’Honneur (2014). She holds honorary PhD degrees from several renowned universities.