Cixous, Hélène

Cixous, Hélène

(born June 5, 1937, Oran, Alg.) Algerian-born French feminist critic, novelist, and playwright. She was reared in Algiers and has taught principally at the University of Paris. Her essays, in collections such as The Newly Born Woman (1975; with Catherine Clément), explore issues of sexual difference and female experience in writing. The Book of Promethea (1983) and other works reinterpret myths and the mythic past and analyze Western representations of women. Her novels include Inside (1969), Reading with Clarice Lispector (1989), and Osnabrück (1999).