Helene Cixous was born in Oran, Algeria, and is emeritus professor of literature at the Université Paris VIII, where she founded and directed the Centre de recherches en études féminines. She is the author of more than seventy works of fiction, plays, and collections of critical essays; recent titles in English translation include *So Close*, *Zero's Neighbour: Sam Beckett, Hemlock, and Philippines.* In her 1975 essay 'The Laugh of the Medusa', she created the term *écriture féminine* to describe a uniquely feminine style of writing.