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.
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 older fiction books considered classic feminist fiction from the 19th century up to the 1960’s. Obviously that’s a large time span, 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.
Alcott wrote this coming-of-age novel focused around the lives of the four March sisters.
Through this novel, Alcott developed a new genre of literature by combining romantic children’s fiction with sentimental novels.
The book was an immediate success! Readers were eager for more about the characters, so Alcott quickly completed a second part. It was originally published in two volumes, however now the two volumes are often sold together in a single novel.
Summary (from Storygraph):
The lives and adventures of the four March sisters–Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy–are set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century New England while their father is off fighting in the Civil War.
Storygraph Categories: fiction, classics, horror, short stories, dark, mysterious, fast-paced
Importance: Mental health portrayal
This is a short story that powerfully portrays health issues and their treatment faced by women of this era (late 19th century).
It’s considered an important work of early American feminist literature due to its portrayal of women’s mental and physical health. It’s also considered a great work of horror fiction.
I find it’s a short story you can keep re-reading, getting something new from it each time.
Summary (from Storygraph):
First published in 1892, The Yellow Wall-Paper is written as the secret journal of a woman who, failing to relish the joys of marriage and motherhood, is sentenced to a country rest cure. Though she longs to write, her husband and doctor forbid it, prescribing instead complete passivity. Narrated with superb psychological and dramatic precision, this short but powerful masterpiece has the heroine create a reality of her own within the hypnotic pattern of the faded yellow wall-paper of her bedroom–a pattern that comes to symbolize her own imprisonment.
This key women’s studies text by a pivotal first-wave feminist writer, lecturer, and activist (1860-1935) is reprinted as it first appeared in New England Magazine in 1892, and contains the essential essay on the author’s life and work by pioneering Gilman scholar Elaine R. Hedges.
The Awakening is considered a precursor to American modernist literature, due to its blend of social commentary, a realistic narrative, and psychological complexity. It’s also one of the earlier American novels that discussed women’s issues without condescension (surprise surprise it took a woman to accomplish that).
It was considered quite controversial at the time of publication, mostly due to its open discussion of female marital infidelity.
Chopin faced many barriers when she tried to publish stories after she published this novel, and unfortunately she did not write another novel after this one.
Summary (from Goodreads):
When first published in 1899, The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin’s daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the confines of her domestic situation.
Aside from its unusually frank treatment of a then-controversial subject, the novel is widely admired today for its literary qualities. Edmund Wilson characterized it as a work “quite uninhibited and beautifully written, which anticipates D. H. Lawrence in its treatment of infidelity.” Although the theme of marital infidelity no longer shocks, few novels have plumbed the psychology of a woman involved in an illicit relationship with the perception, artistry, and honesty that Kate Chopin brought to The Awakening.
Importance: Realistic depiction of women’s lived experiences
The Golden Notebook is considered as a companion volume to Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. It also became popular with feminists due to its realistic depiction of women’s lived experiences.
This 1962 novel by the British writer Doris Lessing is considered one of the best English-language novels since 1923 (according to Time Magazine).
Margaret Drabble describes Lessing’s writing style as “inner space fiction” because Lessing’s work explores a combination of mental and societal breakdown.
Doris Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007 for being “that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny”.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Anna is a writer, author of one very successful novel, who now keeps four notebooks. In one, with a black cover, she reviews the African experience of her earlier year. In a red one she records her political life, her disillusionment with communism. In a yellow one she writes a novel in which the heroine relives part of her own experience. And in the blue one she keeps a personal diary. Finally, in love with an American writer and threatened with insanity, Anna tries to bring the threads of all four books together in a golden notebook.
This was an experiment where seven women read the book online, while also commenting on the book and discussing it together. Each page/website has a short part of the book with the comments from the seven women below. You can read along the book together as if in a group.
Importance: Powerful depiction of mental health and Plath’s only novel
The Bell Jar is the only novel written by Sylvia Plath, an American writer and poet. It was originally published under a pseudonym (”Victoria Lucas”) as it is semi-autobiographical.
The novel portray’s the main character, Esther Greenwood, as she descends into mental illness. The book is often considered a roman à clef as the protagonist’s experience tends to mirror the author’s, with Plath dying by suicide only a month after its publication in the UK.
I think it’s important to acknowledge and warn individuals that there are racists parts of the book. I personally don’t think that those parts are enough to negate the rest of the book, but I completely understand if you don’t want to read the book because of this.
Summary (from Goodreads):
We follow Esther Greenwood’s personal life from her summer job in New York with Ladies’ Day magazine, back through her days at New England’s largest school for women, and forward through her attempted suicide, her bad treatment at one asylum and her good treatment at another, to her final re-entry into the world like a used tyre: “patched, retreaded, and approved for the road” … Esther Greenwood’s account of her year in the bell jar is as clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing.
I couldn’t help to think that so many of the books considered to be “feminist texts” are just a genuine portray of women’s experiences.
Most of them are just women written as fully developed characters dealing with normal life experiences. Or, if they were considered controversial at the time, it might just be women going through experiences that society didn’t want to know about (like mental health and unfulfilling marriages).
I know that older male authors are not known for writing strong or well-rounded women characters, but I didn’t realize that the bar was so low.
I recently read Kafka’s novel The Trial and I was astounded at how terrible the women characters were. Now, I understand that his stories were groundbreaking and powerful commentaries on society, but the one-dimensional female characters were such a turn off, and made it extremely difficult to finish the book.
All that to say, I think we need to understand what it means to be considered a feminist text within the literary context of that era. It’s unlikely for it to match with what we consider feminism to be today.
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 hoping to read more award winning books? While also wanting to read more books by women?
Here’s the perfect list for you. Here are six books by women that have recently (within the last 10 years) won international prizes!
I have included a diverse collection of prizes to showcase a range of genres and book recommendations.
Here’s a list of books with women authors that have won an award in the past 10 years.
The Vegatarian by Han Kang 2016 Man Booker International Prize
Olga Takarczuk Won the Novel Prize for Literature in 2018 Two books to highlight are: Flights & Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction
Network Effect by Martha Wells 2021 Hugo Award for Best Novel
Tomb of Sand 2022 International Booker Prize
Keep reading to find out more about each one.
1. The Vegetarian – 2016 Man Booker International
by Han Kang Translated by Deborah Smith
Year Published: 2007
Storygraph Categories: fiction, contemporary, literary, dark, sad, tense, medium-paced
Language: Korean
Importance: Winner of the 2016 Man Booker International Prize
The Vegetarian was published in 2007 in Korea, with the English version published in 2015. This is Han’s second book that has been translated into English.
The Vegetarian is considered the biggest win for Korean translated literature since the book Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin, which won the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Before the nightmare, Yeong-hye and her husband lived an ordinary life. But when splintering, blood-soaked images start haunting her thoughts, Yeong-hye decides to purge her mind and renounce eating meat. In a country where societal mores are strictly obeyed, Yeong-hye’s decision to embrace a more “plant-like” existence is a shocking act of subversion. And as her passive rebellion manifests in ever more extreme and frightening forms, scandal, abuse, and estrangement begin to send Yeong-hye spiraling deep into the spaces of her fantasy. In a complete metamorphosis of both mind and body, her now dangerous endeavor will take Yeong-hye—impossibly, ecstatically, tragically—far from her once-known self altogether.
Olga won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2018 for “a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life”. She was the first Polish female prose writer to win the Nobel Prize.
Here are two of her novels that have been translated into English.
Importance: Won the Man Booker International Prize in 2018
This is a book of vignettes that are all narrated by a “nameless female traveller.” There are 116 vignettes in the book, varying in length with some only one sentence and others up to 31 pages.
Flights has gotten quite a bit of literary attention. In 2008, it won the Nike Award, Poland’s highest literary award. Then after it was translated, it won the Man Booker International Prize in 2018.
Summary (from Goodreads):
From the incomparably original Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, Flights interweaves reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. Chopin’s heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time. Where are you from? Where are you coming in from? Where are you going? we call to the traveler. Enchanting, unsettling, and wholly original, Flights is a master storyteller’s answer.
Importance: Shortlisted for the 2019 International Booker Prize
The title of the book comes from William Blake’s poem call “Proverbs of Hell.” These are the specific lines:
In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of the dead.
William Blake
Source: Proverbs of Hell
It was shortlisted for the 2019 International Booker Prize, and as mentioned above the author won the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The main character of the novel is a middle aged woman, which is quite rare, but very enjoyable to read.
Summary (from Goodreads):
One of Poland’s most imaginative and lyrical writers, Olga Tokarczuk presents us with a detective story with a twist in DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD. After her two dogs go missing and members of the local hunting club are found murdered, teacher and animal rights activist Janina Duszejko becomes involved in the ensuing investigation. Part magic realism, part detective story, DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD is suspenseful and entertaining reimagining of the genre interwoven with poignant and insightful commentaries on our perceptions of madness, marginalised people and animal rights.
Importance: Winner of the 2021 Women’s Prize for Fiction
Susanna Clarke is well known for her debut novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell from 2004. After her debut novel was published, she became ill with chronic fatigue syndrome, which made writing torturous for her. Piranesi is her second novel, published 16 years later.
The title, Piranesi, alludes to an Italian artist from the 18th century named Giovanni Battista Piranesi. He produced a series of prints prints entitled Imaginary Prisons that depict large, intricate architectural structures.
Piranesi was a finalist for the Hugo Award and nominated for a Nebula Award in 2021. Both awards are for works within the genres of science fiction and fantasy.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Piranesi’s house is no ordinary building: its rooms are infinite, its corridors endless, its walls are lined with thousands upon thousands of statues, each one different from all the others. Within the labyrinth of halls an ocean is imprisoned; waves thunder up staircases, rooms are flooded in an instant. But Piranesi is not afraid; he understands the tides as he understands the pattern of the labyrinth itself. He lives to explore the house.
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.
Importance: Winner of the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Novel
Martha Wells is well known for her Murderbot series (The Murderbot Diaries), a science fiction series about a part human and part robot construct called a Security Unit.
Network effect is the fifth book in the Murderbot series. The first book is called All Systems Red.
The first four books in the series are quite short, whereas this fifth book is much longer. It has been described as “… if the first books were episodes in a four-part TV miniseries, then ‘Network Effect’ is the feature-length movie with the bigger budget and scope, and it is no less enjoyable.”
So far I’ve only read the first book (due to a very long hold time line at my library), but I really enjoyed it and can’t wait to read the rest of the series.
Summary (from Goodreads):
Murderbot returns in its highly anticipated, first, full-length standalone novel.
You know that feeling when you’re at work, and you’ve had enough of people, and then the boss walks in with yet another job that needs to be done right this second or the world will end, but all you want to do is go home and binge your favorite shows? And you’re a sentient murder machine programmed for destruction? Congratulations, you’re Murderbot.
Come for the pew-pew space battles, stay for the most relatable A.I. you’ll read this century.
—
I’m usually alone in my head, and that’s where 90 plus percent of my problems are.
When Murderbot’s human associates (not friends, never friends) are captured and another not-friend from its past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.
Importance: Winner of International Booker Prize in 2022
Tomb of Sand won the International Booker Prize in 2022, making it the first novel translated from an Indian Language to win the prize.
The English version of the book was published by Titled Axis Press, a small non-profit publishing house that focuses on work by Asian and African writers.
The main character is an 80-year old woman! I think it’s important to read stories both from diverse authors and about diverse characters, which would include a range of ages. I’m really excited to read more books with older women main characters.
Summary (from Goodreads):
An eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression at the death of her husband, then resurfaces to gain a new lease on life. Her determination to fly in the face of convention – including striking up a friendship with a hijra (trans) woman – confuses her bohemian daughter, who is used to thinking of herself as the more ‘modern’ of the two.
At the older woman’s insistence they travel back to Pakistan, simultaneously confronting the unresolved trauma of her teenage experiences of Partition, and re-evaluating what it means to be a mother, a daughter, a woman, a feminist.
Rather than respond to tragedy with seriousness, Geetanjali Shree’s playful tone and exuberant wordplay results in a book that is engaging, funny, and utterly original, at the same time as being an urgent and timely protest against the destructive impact of borders and boundaries, whether between religions, countries, or genders.
If you spend much time on booktube, booktok, or other book-social media areas you’ve probably heard of some of these book awards.
When I started trying to understand which was what, it got to be a bit overwhelming as there are so many book awards out there. But that also means you can find awards for almost any category you want to read.
