Women

Initially it may seem that the only thing these authors have in common is their sex, but closer examination shows that these writers share an individualistic way of looking at the world and at relationships between men and women.

If you like fiction that is different from the mainstream and you are interested in the work of women authors there should be something here of interest.

Angela Carter 1940-1992

“Particularly difficult to ‘place’ in any literary genre, Carter is a literary outsider whose short career included novels, short stories, screenplays and non-fiction. Her writing is notable for its “vivid prose, Gothic settings, eroticism, violence,use of fantasy and fairy tales and surrealism”. Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
Check out Several perceptions and The magic toyshop for starters.

Colette 1873-1954

“Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, better known as Colette, was an important figure in early twentieth-century French literature.” Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
The legendary French writer pioneered the trend for writers to plunder their own lives to create material for their fiction. Colette’s life was certainly scandalous enough to provide plenty of material; her exploits as a mime, dancer and model, her lesbian love affairs and her seductions of younger men are fascinating, but most importantly she is a remarkable writer. Cheri and the Claudine novels are some of her more notable works.

Katherine Dunn 1945 -

“Katherine Dunn's novel Geek Love is, according to Jeff VanderMeer in the St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers, "a modern Gothic classic." Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
Narrated by a member of a family of “freaks” in a carnival show, Geek Love alternates between the past and the present. Each narrative strand offers insight into the other, continually forcing the reader to re-evaluate the characters.

Radclyffe Hall 1886 - 1943

“Radclyffe Hall is perhaps best known for her 1928 novel, The Well of Loneliness, one of the first modern literary works whose plot concerned a same-sex relationship between women.” Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
Initially banned, the book paved the way for later fictional portrayals of gay and lesbian life.

Erica Jong 1942 -

“Best known as the author of the 1973 best-selling novel Fear of Flying, Erica Jong has received critical attention for her frank and unabashed portrayal of female sexuality.” Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
While Fear of Flying guaranteed Jong’s place in women’s literary history, it overshadowed her work as a confessional poet in the style of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.

Doris Lessing 1919 -

“Doris Lessing, whose long career as a novelist, short story writer, and essayist began in the mid-twentieth century, is considered among the most important writers of the modern postwar era.” Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
Lessing has explored many of the major issues of the 20th century in genres ranging from criticism to science fiction, from travel writing to memoir. All of which makes it very difficult to categorise her and for the reader to know what to expect. The Golden Notebook is considered to be her major and most controversial novel. The Good Terrorist and The diaries of Jane Somers are recommended starting points for reading Lessing's works.

Carson McCullers 1917 - 1967

“Carson McCullers wrote of lonely, alienated, and sometimes grotesque characters who symbolize individuals' essential isolation and the failure of interpersonal communication." Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
Often compared to William Faulkner, McCullers is an outstanding novelist in the Southern gothic tradition, using her own tragic life as the basis for her stories of people’s failure to connect with one another. McCullers’ first book, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is considered one of her most powerful novels.

Anaïs Nin 1903 - 1977

“On a ship bound for New York from Barcelona in 1914, eleven-year-old Anaïs Nin began writing the journal that would gradually evolve into the most acclaimed work of her literary career…” Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
Nin also wrote several novels in the French surrealistic style, such as A Spy in the House of Love. But Nin’s journals are her most acclaimed work, exploring “sex, the self and psychoanalysis” and documenting her many love affairs, most notably her long relationship with Henry Miller.

Flannery O’Connor 1925 - 1964

“A. L. Rowse called Flannery O'Connor "probably the greatest short-story writer of our time," and this opinion is not unique among critics.” Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
O’Connor writes about the struggle between good and evil, where evil is violent and destructive and God’s grace hits “the characters in [her] stories with the force of a mugging," (Josephine Hendin).” There is also humour in O’Connor’s stories and her perceptive writing of her characters rivets the attention of her readers. Wise Blood is her most acclaimed work and became a cult movie in 1979.

Sylvia Plath 1932 - 1963

“Sylvia Plath was one of the most dynamic and admired poets of the twentieth century.” Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
Surely also one of the most tragic, Plath was already a celebrated poet when she took her own life in 1963, at the age of 30. The Bell Jar, her only novel, is one of the most famous coming-of-age stories in the English language.

Ayn Rand 1905 - 1982

“Ayn Rand, born Alice Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1905, occupies a unique position in the history of American literature. … In many ways she was a paradox: a writer of popular romances whose ideas were taken seriously, a fierce individualist who collected many followers.” Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
A Romantic writer, Rand’s novels, such as The Fountainhead, presented her philosophy of “reason, individualism and capitalism”, a philosophy Rand called Objectivism.

Anne Rice 1941 -

“Considered one of the leading practitioners of Gothic writing in the twentieth century, popular novelist Anne Rice has built her career, … by sticking to "the Big Themes: good versus evil, mortality and immortality." Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
Although her novels have won both critical acclaim and a cult following, Rice herself "always thought my work was too extreme and eccentric to go mainstream”. Rice’s Vampire Chronicles captures the reader’s imagination as Rice identifies with the vampire, rather than the victim.

Jeanette Winterson 1959 -

“Jeanette Winterson is an English writer who has drawn attention due to the radical nature of both her literary works and her sexuality.” Read more in Literature Resource Centre Biography.
Noted for challenging the conventions of the novel form, Winterson has been described as “a holy terror, a lesbian desperado and a literary genius” (Laura Miller). Recommended reading to begin with is Winterson’s Oranges are not the only fruit, which won England's Whitbread Prize for best first novel in 1985.