Influential women writers of the 20th c

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Paula Fox, Louise Erdrich, E. Annie Proulx

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 1 December 2006 19:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Thanks, Scott. The Man Who Loved Children I have not yet read, though I did only recently manage to get my hands on a copy. What's sad is that, given she may be Australia's best-known female novelist (well, beside Colleen McCulloch, ahem), pretty much none of her stuff is even in print here. I had to get a hardback Everyman edition from the US. And well done with the Willa Cather - can't believe I forgot her.

What's Tillie Olsen like? I recently went on a 2nd-hand book-buying binge, but had already exceeded my budget when I came a cross an interesting-looking old Virago collection by her ('Tell Me A Riddle', I think it was called). Should I have bought it?

― James Morrison (James Morrison), Monday, 4 December 2006 01:38 (seventeen years ago) link

i'm actually not a huge olsen fan. i just know that she is an influence on certain american fiction writers. fiction workshop people. tell me a riddle is her most famous story. i don't know if she influenced any of the minimalist folks in the 80's, probably. someone else i could never get into who was also sorta influential was kay boyle. but i should give her another shot. and grace paley come to think of it.

i keep forgetting that the person who started this thread said LATE 20th century. oh well.

i love thea astley. she should be a lot better known. you could say that about a lot of people though. janet frame is a god to me and i don't know many people who have read her books.

― scott seward (121212), Monday, 4 December 2006 05:14 (seventeen years ago) link

meanwhile, how could i forget joy williams! one of my favorite late 20th century writers. friggin' astounding to me. buy all her books.

― scott seward (121212), Monday, 4 December 2006 05:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Astrid Lindgren.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Monday, 4 December 2006 12:29 (seventeen years ago) link

Carol Shields

― nuneb (nuneb), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 20:09 (seventeen years ago) link

Jamaica Kincaid
Bobbi Ann Mason
Leslie Marmon Silko

― nuneb (nuneb), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 20:17 (seventeen years ago) link

Jorie Graham

― thom lab, Wednesday, 6 December 2006 14:04 (seventeen years ago) link

alice munro cannot be rec. enough

― Susan Douglas (Susan Douglas), Sunday, 10 December 2006 00:35 (seventeen years ago) link

Hurston, Atwood, Rhys, Morrison, Harper Lee

D'you mean Zora Neale Hurston? she wrote in the early 20th century... not late.

― max (maxreax), Sunday, 10 December 2006 23:24 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah and uh Sylvia Plath (& Anne Sexton)

― W i l l (common_person), Monday, 11 December 2006 08:07 (seventeen years ago) link

two weeks pass...

The NYRB has Christina Stead's "Letty Fox" in print. I plan to get it ASAP after her works were rcommended to me by a friend. I am always startled by all the good authors I read from the NYRB classics that are so unheralded.

― Arethusa (Arethusa), Friday, 29 December 2006 05:43 (seventeen years ago) link

I agree - if it weren't for NYRB I'd never have found Caroline Blackwood, JR Ackerley, Harvey Swados, John Collier, Cesar Pavese, etc etc. It's a fine series of books.

― James Morrison (James Morrison), Monday, 1 January 2007 23:16 (seventeen years ago) link

Pat Barker ought to be on this thread too.

― jaq (jaq), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 00:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Joan Didion - IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERRATE; LIKE CRACK COCAINE FOR WRITERS, IF CRACK COCAINE WROTE IN THE ELEGIAC MODE

Angela Carter?

― Name Not Found (rogermexico), Tuesday, 2 January 2007 19:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, James,not to mention Ivy Compton-Burnett and Sylvia Townsend Warner, two of my favourite NYRB finds. They also released a stories collection by Eileen Chang, a well known author in China and the surrounding areas but not in North America, I think. By all accounts she's an excellent writer.

Name, Angela Carter is on my reading list this year. England seems to produce a lot of great weird fantasy/fantastical authors.

― Arethusa (Arethusa), Wednesday, 3 January 2007 05:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh yeah, Sylvia Townsend Warner. She has to go on this list. I don't know how influential she is, but she's bloody great. And Barbara Comyns is another writer NYRB recovered, similarly uninfluential but brilliant. I Think Virago in the UK also do a few of her other books, which are well worth seeking out.

― James Morrison (James Morrison), Wednesday, 3 January 2007 22:18 (seventeen years ago) link

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