Hélène Cixous was born in 1937 in Oran, Algeria, which at the time belonged to the French state. An extraordinarily prolific writer who is difficult to pigeonhole by the usual standards, she has practised literature as well as autobiography, essays and playwriting.

Her work is closely linked to feminist criticism and reflection on the Jewish and colonial condition. But that is not all. From the outset, she has focused on the question of exclusion, non-conformity with imposed norms and categories, and the violence we inflict on those who do not fit into the categories that we so easily turn into indisputable truths.

In these Ferrater Mora Lectures, Cixous developed themes explored in her most recent work, focusing mainly on the Shoa, but also on the general form of violent exclusion of the altrx: from the convictions for witchcraft to the consequences of the French colonisation of Algeria.