ABSTRACT
Hélène Cixous has always worked against any systematic approach to life and writing. This makes it difficult and ironic for anyone-especially a critic-to quickly and conveniently summarize the bodies of literary and art criticism in the works of a writer also well-known for her fictional talent. Therefore, any attempt at finding a simple rationale for both her fictional and critical writing is apparently destined to fail. Another difficulty resides in the fact that her criticism-particularly in its form and values-seems to have made any critical comment over the personal, sometimes consciously intimate expression of her reading an absurd academic exercise. Yet, both the quality and quantity of her critical production require that it be studied for its attempt at unconventional, non-systematic ways of reading. Besides, her claim of not entering the realm of “categorical accesses to language and experience” (Gray 174) needs to be studied in relation to her criticism. Thus, to what extent are her fictional writing and her critical writing related?
