Helene Cixous

Helene Cixous biography

Cixous's early biography is somewhat complex. She is the daughter of Jewish parents who were living in French Algeria when she was born. Because of this, Cixous considers herself able to understand two groups. On the one hand, she was French and part of the Algerian colonial experience. As a French person living in Algeria, she was, in some senses, an 'oppressor'. On the other hand, she was Jewish and, therefore, part of an oppressed group. This, she believes, gave her special insight.

Fig.1 - An Algerian city where Cixous was born.

As for her academic career, she rose to prominence soon after publishing her doctoral thesis on James Joyce (1882-1941). It was called The Exile of James Joyce, or the Art of Displacement and was published in 1968.

Cixous had a long-standing friendship and professional association with the famous deconstructionist Jacques Derrida. They were both French Jews born in Algeria. It was Derrida who described Cixous as the 'greatest living writer in French'; such was his admiration for her. Cixous wrote a book about Derrida called Portrait de Jacques Derrida en jeune saint juif (Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint). (2001)

Cixous has won numerous awards, including honorary degrees from universities around the world, from Cornell university in the USA to the University of York in the UK.

Hélène Cixous l'écriture feminine

Cixous developed what is called l'écriture feminine (women's writing). The aim was to develop a style of writing which was qualitatively different from male writing. Male writing, Cixous argued, was based on exclusion. In écriture feminine, there would be characteristically female traits, such as pauses in the flow of the writing, along with interruptions or disruptions, puns, and intentional silences.

As a leader in the movement known as the 'new French feminism', Cixous was vitally important, alongside others, including Antoinette Fouque (1936-2014).

Cixous's most well-known essay is called 'The Laugh of the Medusa' (Le Rire de la Méduse in the original French), published in 1975. In it, Cixous argues that women can and should use their bodies to communicate because language (derived from a patriarchal system) is not available to them.

It is in this essay that she first uses the term 'women's writing' or female writing (écriture feminine). Women's writing as a writing style provides women with a way of creating their own identities outside the conventional writing styles owned and dominated by men. Her focus is on the individuality of women, especially the individuality of their bodies. It is this (the body) that she believes holds the key to authorship.

The female writing style

This approach meant that Cxous was free to write as she wished, and this led to some innovative writing by her, evident in her fiction and poetry.

Helene Cixous quotes

In her writing and interviews, Cixous asserted the importance of the return of women to writing. She endeavoured to formulate a unique style, semi-autobiographical, which would act as a way for women to re-enter the fray as writers in their own right. She knew that the way back would involve pain, as, indeed any real writing does (see below).

Cixous is critical of patriarchal language. By adopting the language of patriarchal norms, Cixous argued, women could write 'themselves' and be free of 'correction', of having to use language and prescribed ways, which opens women up to being corrected. By using language differently, the danger and fear of correction by men would be removed.

In her essay 'The Laugh of the Medusa', she counters the fears men have of women finding their own voice.

Cixous saw women's language as revolutionary. She understood women's writing to be similar to the revolutionary protests she was part of in 1968 during the student uprising in France. For Cixous and other deconstructionists, writing was never only about writing; it was a highly politicised approach to the big questions about society, religion, patriarchy, meaning and truth.

As mentioned above, writing as a revolutionary act is painful. It requires sacrifice and courage.

Helene Cixous books

Cixous has written numerous books. Here is a selection:

• The Exile of James Joyce, 1972.
• To Live the Orange, 1979.
• Angst, 1985.
• The Newly Born Woman, 1986.
• The Book of Promethea, 1991.
• The Hélène Cixous Reader. Translated by Sellers, Susan, 1994.
• Rootprints: Memory and Life Writing, 1997.
• Portrait of Jacques Derrida as a Young Jewish Saint, 2004.
• Dream I Tell You, 2006.
• Reveries of the Wild Woman: Primal Scenes, 2006.
• Love Itself: In the Letter Box, 2008.
• Hyperdream, 2009.
• Hemlock: old women in bloom, 2011.

Aside from these, Cixous wrote a number of plays and significant amounts of critical essays.