How women conquered the world of fiction

From Sally Rooney to Raven Leilani, female novelists have captured the literary zeitgeist, with more buzz, prizes and bestsellers than men. But is this cultural shift something to celebrate or rectify?In March, Vintage, one of the UK’s largest literary fiction divisions, announced the five debut novelists it would be championing this year: Megan Nolan, Pip Williams, Ailsa McFarlane, Jo Hamya and Vera Kurian.All five of them are women. But you could be forgiven for not noticing it, so commonplace are female-dominated lists in 2021. Over the past 12 months, almost all of the buzz in fiction has been around young women: Patricia Lockwood, Yaa Gyasi, Raven Leilani, Avni Doshi, Lauren Oyler. Ask a novelist of any gender who they are reading and they will almost certainly mention one of Rachel Cusk, Ottessa Moshfegh, Rachel Kushner, Gwendoline Riley, Monique Roffey or Maria Stepanova. Or they will be finding new resonances in Anita Brookner, Zora Neale Hurston, Natalia Ginzburg, Octavia Butler, Ivy Compton-Burnett. The energy, as anyone in the publishing world will tell you, is with women.It’s only relatively recently that fiction written by a woman about intimate subjects like sex has been classed as literary fictionClass is the dirty secret of publishing. Working-class male writers are now expected to answer for a past that isn’t oursMen think that to be allowed a place at the table, they need to have the right views and be these nice guysWhy wasn’t there uproar in the media... Continue reading at 'The Guardian'

[ The Guardian | 2021-05-16 06:00:48 UTC ]

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10 New Audiobooks for Fall 2024

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[ The Millions | 2024-10-29 12:00:00 UTC ]
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How Should Debut Novelists Measure Success?

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Breaking Bourgeois Taboos in Cairo: Ihsan Abdel Quddous’s A Nose and Three Eyes, by Gretchen McCullough

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‘It was a deflating experience’: the novelists who nearly gave up

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Black British Book festival founder criticises lack of diversity in publishing

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[ The Guardian | 2024-10-02 16:06:33 UTC ]
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Looking for what to watch this weekend? Try your favorite authors’ favorite films.

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