Hélène Cixous was born in Oran, Algeria in 1937 to a Jewish family, and her family history expresses much of the complexity of ethnic and national identities in twentieth-century Europe and related regions. Her father was a French-speaking doctor whose ancestors had arrived in Algeria via Spain and Morocco. Her mother was born in Germany. Her grandmother continued to live in Germany until 1938, but was able to leave Nazi Germany at that time because a brief period of residence in Strasbourg before the First World War meant that she gained French citizenship when Alsace became part of France. During the Second World War the Vichy government forbade Cixous's father to practice his profession, the family were deprived of French citizenship, and Hélène and her brother were not allowed to…
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Citation: Shiach, Morag. "Hélène Cixous". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 November 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=888, accessed 22 November 2024.]
