300 years ago, novels were a 'fickle' hobby written by, and for women. Popular Gothic novels were made fun of by pretty much everyone; from politicians to Jane Austen, who explored the genre satirically in the timelessly witty 'Northanger Abbey', even incorporating this gender divide into one of the novel's antagonists, John Thorpe, who remarks on Catherine's love for reading "Udolpho? Lord! No, I never read novels". Somewhere along the way, however, men decided that there was some merit in the art of literature, and female authors have been sidelined, ignored, and forgotten oftentimes since.
Women still buy two-thirds of novels, but the picture of this gender divide became ever clearer when Vida, an American organisation that focuses on women in the arts, published a report that proved pretty much every major international publication heavily focused on male writers; from review coverage on books to the people they commission to write about them.
It shouldn't come as much as a surprise, then, that most 'top 100' literature lists are also completely male dominated. Lists such as '100 Books Everyone Should Read in Their Lifetime', even from the more prestigious publications, feature very few books by women, and even female-focused articles tend to feature several books by one woman, or mistakenly list male authors like Evelyn Waugh, who was placed 97th on a list of most-read female authors just this year by TIME magazine.
So, inspired by Jean at Jean's Thoughts, who wrote a post bringing this issue to attention last month (link here) - here is my own list of 100 female authors that everyone should read. It features women from around the globe; from the first novel ever written, to books that were self-published just last year. These are women who I see as having a substantial influence on, not just writing, but culture and the world around us. They have written novels, non-fiction, short stories, comic books and poetry collections. I'll be ticking them off as I go along too.
Let me know what you think in the comments below. How many of these authors have you read? Who is your favourite female author? What do their books mean to you? Have I missed anyone out?
- Amanda Lee Koe ✓
- Antonia White
- Agatha Christie
- Ali Smith
- Alison Bechdel
- Alice Walker ✓
- Amy Tan
- Angela Carter ✓
- Anita Diamant
- Anita Loos
- Anne Bronte
- Anne Radcliffe
- Anne Sexton
- Arundhati Roy
- A.S. Byatt
- Audre Lorde
- Azar Nafisi
- Banana Yoshimoto
- Barbara Kingsolver
- Bell Hooks
- Betty Smith
- Caitlin Moran
- Charlotte Bronte
- Charlotte Perkins Gilman ✓
- Cheryl Strayed
- Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche ✓
- Claudia Rankine ✓
- Clarice Lispector
- Clarissa Pinkola Estes
- Colette ✓
- Daphne Du Maurier ✓
- Diana Wynne Jones
- Dodie Smith
- Donna Tartt
- Edith Wharton
- Eimear McBride
- Emily Bronte ✓
- Emily Dickinson ✓
- Elizabeth Bowen
- Elizabeth Gaskell
- Eowyn Ivey
- Erica Jong
- Flannery O’Connor
- Frances Hodgson Burnett
- George Eliot
- Harper Lee ✓
- Helen Oyeyemi
- Hilary Mantel
- Isabel Allende
- Jane Austen ✓
- Jaqueline Susann
- Jean Rhys ✓
- Jeanette Walls
- Jeanette Winterson
- Joan Didion
- Joyce Carol Oates
- Julia Alvarez
- Kate Chopin ✓
- Laura Bates ✓
- Laura Esquivel
- Lisa See
- Louisa May Alcott
- Louise O’Neill
- Lucy Maud Montgomery ✓
- Madeleine L’Engle
- Malala Yousafzai
- Marilynne Robinson
- Marina Keegan ✓
- Margaret Atwood ✓
- Margaret Mitchell ✓
- Malorie Blackman
- Marjane Satrapi ✓
- Mary Shelley ✓
- Mary Wollstonecraft
- Maya Angelou ✓
- Murasaki Shikibu
- Muriel Spark
- Naomi Wolf
- Nora Ephron
- Octavia E. Butler
- Rebecca Solnit
- Rebecca West
- Robin Hobb
- Roxane Gay
- Rupi Kaur ✓
- Sandra Cisneros
- Seonmi Hwang
- Shirley Conran
- Shirley Jackson ✓
- Simone De Beauvoir
- Susan Hill
- Susan Sontag
- Stella Gibbons
- Sylvia Plath ✓
- Toni Morrison
- Ursula K. Le Guin
- Virginia Woolf
- Willa Cather
- Zadie Smith
- Zora Neale Hurston ✓
