Writing Women: Contemporary Women Novelists - Softcover

A survey of the work of women novelists writing today and a celebration of the strengths and diversities of feminist writing worldwide. Olga Kenyon first guides the reader through the labyrinth of new feminist literary criticism, as practised on both sides of the Atlantic, and then considers the extraordinary richness of women's writing, from the conventional to the experimental. From Maya Angelou, Alice Walker and Toni Morrison to the black women writers of Africa, the Caribbean and Britain, Kenyon draws out the distinctinve contribution of black women to the growing body of feminist literature. She contrasts their particular strengths with the work of European and American writers such as Alison Carter, Elaine Feinstein and Alison Lurie. The writers themselves comment on their work - the problems they encountered - providing fresh and sometimes unexpected insights. "Writing Women" aims to both demystify feminist critiques of fiction and to remind the reader that feminist writing is a source of pleasure and enjoyment.

Olga Kenyon lectures at Morley College in London where she is Head of Humanities.