Hélène Cixous was born in Oran, Algeria, on June 5, 1937. Her father was of French-colonial and Jewish descent and her mother was Austro-German. Cixous grew up in Algeria, although she studied in France and began her academic career there. Her first text, Le prénom de Dieu (God's first name), was published in 1967. Since 1968, she has been a professor of English literature at Université de Paris VIII–Vincennes, a university considered "revolutionary" for its opposition to traditional institutional structures, which she helped found. Cixous also established the first women's studies center in Europe at Université de Paris VIII.

Cixous has been consistently concerned with the repressive and exclusionary consequences of institutional and systemic forms of power. She has been interested in both individual and collective liberation struggles, such as the liberation...