ABSTRACT
Hélène Cixous (b. 1937) is a versatile French writer and critic who has worked in a variety of areas-fiction, theatre and theoretical writing-in a style frequently transgressive of genre. Associated with the ‘Psychanalyse et Politique’ group of feminists, her work has been informed by a strong psychoanalytic impulse which seeks to challenge unconscious structures of exclusion. Cixous has argued instead for a sexual difference based on openness to the other, and has promoted a ‘feminine writing’— écriture feminine-as a strategy of exploring difference in a non-exclusionary mode. Such writing is not limited to women, however, and some of the best examples have been the works of male authors such as James Joyce.
