Susan Sellers 
Helene Cixous 
Authorship, Autobiography and Love

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.

Table of Content

Preface.

Introduction.

1. The Early Texts.

2. Creating a Feminine Subject.

3. Writing with the Voice of the Other.

4. Cixous and the Theatre.

5. Recent Writings.

Conclusion.

Notes.

Bibliography.

Index.

About the author

Susan Sellers is a British author, translator, editor and novelist. She is Professor of English and Related Literature at the University of St Andrews, and co-General Editor of the Cambridge University Press edition of the writings of Virginia Woolf.