… it turns out that I had the misfortune, which I consider a stroke of luck, to have spent my childhood in a monstrous world. It taught me a lot, and I don’t regret it. Later, I was a young woman in a world that seemed instead a paradise. My children have experienced it as well. Since I had children very early, they have shared in it with me. They were my companions through the happy times of the ’70s, when the gems of thought of what is called French theory spread from France to the rest of the West. When I began to write, I had Blanchot and Gracq at my side. One must try to be worthy. There were noble philosophers, dazzling linguistics, applied mathematics, psychoanalysis. After Freud, there was Lacan. A slew of luminaries and innovators: Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault… It was a happy time: those researchers were able to come together thanks to the movement of 1968. They finally met, exchanged, gathered together, and effected a worldwide change in thought. Now we are in a fallow period. It is not pleasant. I feel sorry for my grandchildren. I find they are living in an era of ashes.

Hélène Cixous interview from a couple of years back.