Published in France as La jeune née in 1975, and found here in its first English translation, The Newly Born Woman is a landmark text of the modern feminist movement. In it, Hélène Cixous and Catherine Clément put forward the concept of écriture feminine, exploring the ways women’s sexuality and unconscious shape their imaginary, their language, and their writing. Through their readings of historical, literary, and psychoanalytic accounts, Cixous and Clément explore what is hidden and repressed in culture, revealing the unconscious of history.

Helene Cixous chairs the Center for Research in Feminine Studies at the Universite de Paris VIII-Saint Denis and teaches at the College International de Philosophie in Paris. She is the author of Manna for the Mandelstams for the Mandelas (Minnesota, 1994), Readings (Minnesota, 1991), and Reading with Clarice Lispector (Minnesota, 1990).

Catherine Clement has been a professor, a journalist, a diplomat, and cultural editor of Le Matin. She is the author of Syncope (Minnesota, 1994) and Opera, or the Undoing of Women (Minnesota, 1988).

Betsy Wing is translator of The College of Socioloy, edited by Denis Hollier (Minnesota, 1988).

Sandra M. Gilbert is professor of English at the University of California, Davis, and coeditor (with Susan Gubar) of The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women (1985).