Born in Algeria in 1937, Helene Cixous achieved world fame for her short stories, criticism, and fictionalized autobiography (Dedans, 1969). Her work quickly became controversial because it frankly tested a distinction between male and female writing. Her literary experiments and her conclusions make her one of the most stimulating and most elusive feminist theorists of our time.

Verena Andermatt Conley, a professor of French and women's studies at Miami University, has written the first full-length study of Cixous in English. Looking at Cixous as writer, teacher, and theoretician, Conley takes up Cixous's ongoing exploration of the feminine as related to the masculine-words not to be equated with woman and man-and her search for a terminology less freighted with emotion and prejudgment. Conley has updated this paperback edition with a new preface, bibliography, and interview with Cixous conducted by the editors of Hors Cadre.