Cixous, Hélène

The French philosopher, scholar and author Hélène Cixous is a leading post-structuralist feminist scholar alongside Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. Cixous was born in 1937 to a Jewish family in Oran, Algeria. Her father was a Sephardic Jew from a Moroccan background, his mother was a German refugee born in Osnabrück. Cixous came from a multi-lingual family that spoke German, French, Spanish, Arabic, English and Hebrew. Her father, a doctor, lost his French citizenship and the right to execute his profession under the Vichy regime, and Cixous and her brother were forced to leave school. After her father had died from tuberculosis when she was still young, Cixous’ mother supported the family by working as a midwife. She often brought her daughter to work; it was a crucial experience for Cixous. Birth as a metaphor for writing is a central theme in her research.