Hélène Cixous: Authorship, Autobiography and Love

Key Contemporary Thinkers (Polity)

by Susan Sellers, Susan Seller

This book is a clear and accessible introduction to the writings of Helene Cixous, novelist, dramatist and critic, whose work has had a major impact on feminist theory and practice.
Susan Sellers, a major scholar on Cixous, provides a lucid account of Cixous's theoretical position, and in particular her distinctive theory of an 'écriture féminine'. She discusses the development of Cixous's literary oeuvre in the context of this theory, and analyses a selection of the works in detail to illustrate the different stages in Cixous's writing career.
Focusing on the key novels and plays, Sellers explores a range of issues and themes central to her work; the correlation between the death of Cixous's own father and her 'coming-into-being' as a writer; the psychological process of separation and individuation and the creation of a female authorial self; the discovery of the other and the dramatization of love; the delineation/depiction of an alternative form of relationship between self and other which would have a significance in a wider sphere than that of the merely personal.
This much-needed book will be welcomed by students in literature and literary theory, feminism and women's studies, English and French studies and philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy

216 pages, Paperback

First published April 18, 1996

About the author

Susan Sellers is an author, editor, translator and novelist and Professor of English at the University of St Andrews in Scotland.