Hélène Cixous (; French: [siksu]; born 5 June 1937) is a French writer, playwright and literary critic. She is known for her experimental writing style and great versatility as a writer and thinker, her work dealing with multiple genres: theater, literary and feminist theory, art criticism, autobiography and poetic fiction. Since 1967, she has published a considerable body of work consisting of some seventy titles, mainly published in the original French by Grasset, Gallimard, Des femmes and Galilée.

Cixous is perhaps best known for her 1976 article "The Laugh of the Medusa", which established her as one of the early thinkers in post-structural feminism. Her plays have been directed by Simone Benmussa at the Théâtre d'Orsay, by Daniel Mesguich at the Théâtre de la Ville and by Ariane Mnouchkine at the Théâtre du Soleil. During her academic career she was primarily associated with the Centre universitaire de Vincennes (today's University of Paris VIII), where she founded the first centre of women's studies at a European university. She is considered a strong contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature.