Five modern classics: Feminist fiction books from the 1970’s until now
As April is Women’s History Month, I’ll be sharing book lists with a focus on books considered classic feminist texts and other books by women authors.
Are you interested in reading fiction books that shaped literature and how women were perceived?
Here are five fiction books considered modern classic feminist fiction from the 1970’s until recently. A lot of books have been published in that time, so this is just a small selection of books.
All of these books have had a significant impact on literature and the way women have been perceived. I’ve listed them in order of when they were published.
Here’s a list of five fiction books considered to be modern feminist classics.
The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (1979)
Kindred by Octavia Butler (1979)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (1982)
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)
Kim Jiyoung, born 1982 by Cho Nam-Joo (2016)
Keep reading to find out more about each one.
1. The Bloody Chamber (1979)
by Angela Carter
Year Published: 1979
Storygraph Categories: fiction, magical realism, short stories, dark, mysterious, medium-paced
Importance: One of the first feminist retellings of fairy tales
This is a collection of ten stories that are some kind of retelling or are based on fairytales or folk tales. As Carter stated: “My intention was not to do ‘versions’ or, as the American edition of the book said, horribly, ‘adult’ fairy tales, but to extract the latent content from the traditional stories.”
In general, the stories challenge the representation of women in fairy tales and was considered one of the first feminist retellings of fairy tales.
The stories vary in length, and the novelette which inspired the title, “The Bloody Chamber” is significantly longer than the rest. It won the Cheltenham Festival Literary Prize in 1979, the first year of the prize.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Angela Carter was a storytelling sorceress, the literary godmother of Neil Gaiman, David Mitchell, Audrey Niffenegger, J. K. Rowling, Kelly Link, and other contemporary masters of supernatural fiction. In her masterpiece, The Bloody Chamber—which includes the story that is the basis of Neil Jordan’s 1984 movie The Company of Wolves—she spins subversively dark and sensual versions of familiar fairy tales and legends like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Bluebeard,” “Puss in Boots,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” giving them exhilarating new life in a style steeped in the romantic trappings of the gothic tradition.
Importance: Science fiction that centers Black characters
Octavia Butler was one of the most influential Black Women authors in Science Fiction. She grew up loving science fiction and set out to write books that she could see herself in and is often considered to cross genre boundaries.
In Kindred, it combines time travel with slave narratives. The story focuses on two interracial couples, and explores how issues of power, gender, and race intersect.
In an interview about the novel in 2004, Butler said, she “set out to make people feel history.”
Summary (from Goodreads):
The first science fiction written by a black woman, Kindred has become a cornerstone of black American literature. This combination of slave memoir, fantasy, and historical fiction is a novel of rich literary complexity. Having just celebrated her 26th birthday in 1976 California, Dana, an African-American woman, is suddenly and inexplicably wrenched through time into antebellum Maryland. After saving a drowning white boy there, she finds herself staring into the barrel of a shotgun and is transported back to the present just in time to save her life. During numerous such time-defying episodes with the same young man, she realizes the challenge she’s been given…
Importance: Winner of the 1983 Pulitzer Prize (making Walker the first black woman to win the prize)
The Color Purple won both the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. It was also on the BBC News’ list of the 100 most influential novels.
However, the novel has also frequently been thee target of censors or book challenges, as it appears at #17 on the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000-2010. It’s usually challenged due to explicit content, specifically in terms of its depiction of violence.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Alice Walker’s iconic modern classic is now a Penguin Book.
A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience.
The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker’s epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey towards redemption and love.
The Handmaid’s Tale is considered a feminist dystopian novel and is notable for sparking intense debate.
The novel is considered a feminist dystopian novel because it explores themes of how women are subjugated, especially their lost of agency, individuality and reproductive rights.
Atwood used history as inspiration as all scenarios portrayed within the novel have actually occurred in real life. In an interview Atwood stated, “…I didn’t put in anything that we haven’t already done, we’re not already doing, we’re seriously trying to do, coupled with trends that are already in progress… So all of those things are real, and therefore the amount of pure invention is close to nil.” The overlap with reality makes the novel that much more impactful and scary.
In 1985, the novel won the Governor General’s Award in Canada, along with the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. It has also been nominated for a handful of other awards: the Nebula Award in 1986, the Booker Prize in 1986, and the Prometheus Award in 1987.
However, it has been criticized as “white feminism” for both the treatment of marginalized communities in the book (basically ”doing away with them” in a few lines and removing them from the conversation), while also primarily borrowing from the lived experiences of those communities but applying it to white women. A lot of the reproductive and human rights exploitation highlighted in the novel came from how Black and Indigenous women were treated in the past.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. She may leave the home of the Commander and his wife once a day to walk to food markets whose signs are now pictures instead of words because women are no longer allowed to read. She must lie on her back once a month and pray that the Commander makes her pregnant, because in an age of declining births, Offred and the other Handmaids are valued only if their ovaries are viable. Offred can remember the years before, when she lived and made love with her husband, Luke; when she played with and protected her daughter; when she had a job, money of her own, and access to knowledge. But all of that is gone now . . .
Funny, unexpected, horrifying, and altogether convincing, The Handmaid’s Tale is at once scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force.
This is the most recent of the five novels, but it’s notable for how it depicts sexism in Korea and the recent impact it has had on sparking discussion around women’s experiences.
Even though it’s a fictional novel, all the main character’s experiences are based on statistics and research done by the author (with footnotes and references to back it up).
The novel focuses on sexism experienced throughout everyday life, the constant and pervasive sexism.
The author, Cho Nam-Joo, said that she intended to “make this into a public debate.”
“I thought of Kim Jiyoung’s character as a vessel that contains experiences and emotions that are common to every Korean woman.”
Cho Nam-Joo
In 2020, the novel was longlisted for both the U.S. National Book Award for Translated Literature and the French Emile Guimet Prize for Asian Literature.
Summary (from Storygraph):
One of the most notable novels of the year, hailed by both critics and K-pop stars alike, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 follows one woman’s psychic deterioration in the face of rampant misogyny. In a tidy apartment on the outskirts of Seoul, millennial “everywoman” Kim Jiyoung spends her days caring for her infant daughter. But strange symptoms appear: Jiyoung begins to impersonate the voices of other women, dead and alive. As she plunges deeper into this psychosis, her concerned husband sends her to a psychiatrist. Jiyoung narrates her story to this doctor—from her birth to parents who expected a son to elementary school teachers who policed girls’ outfits to male coworkers who installed hidden cameras in women’s restrooms. But can her psychiatrist cure her, or even discover what truly ails her?
Have you read any of these books? I’d love to hear your thoughts on the book in a comment below?
Final thoughts
I know this is such a small selection of books, and it’s clearly not representative of all feminist fiction in the past 50 ish years. Though, I did try and provide a range of novels both in genre and authors.
Each one of these is so distinct and I like how each book has it’s own way of sparking conversation and provoking debate. I believe each of these will leave a strong impression on you and give you lots to think about. However you feel about these books, you’ll likely have an opinion about it and something to say.
I think some of the best books help inspire both questions and conversation. If it can make you reconsider aspects of reality or get you talking to others about big topics, I think that’s powerful.
Do you have a favourite feminist fictional book? I’d love you to share it in a comment below.
