Classic Wide Excluding the most popular ones (ex. Jane Austin) who is your favorite "classic" female author?
I'm trying to broaden my horizons I am aware of Jane Austin, Emily Bronte, Louise May Alcott, Laura Inglis and even Mary Shelley and Ann Franks but I'm sure there are a lot more and perhaps better female novelists representing a wide variety of genres. Who is your favorite, what genre did she write and what titles would you recommend?
Kate Chopin: The Awakening. It's been a while since I read that novel, but it's one that is dominated not only by a character I have come to care about, but a situation that smacks of raw, humanity...but it's subtle...understated.
Of more modern authors I would have to say Maxine Hong-Kingston. She rocks. The novel that first introduced me to her wild and freewheeling creativity and considerable intelligence was a novel rather improbably named: Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book
If you're into the genres of science fiction and fantasy, then I'd suggest ANYTHING by Octavia E. Butler and Ursula K. LeGuin. Both authors take an enlightened "anthropological" approach to the worlds/characters that they write about. By LeGuin, I would suggest her classic "The Dispossessed" or "The Left Hand of Darkness" as well as the more recent "The Telling."
From Octavia E. Butler, I would suggest the "Xenogenesis" novels: Dawn, Imago, and Adulthood Rites--currently collected in a single volume called Lilith's Brood, and as an great introduction to her body of work, I'd also suggest reading "Bloodchild and other Stories." Unfortunately, Ms Butler passed away all too recently, and so her body of work is not nearly as extensive as it should be. She was a brilliant writer and a keenly perceptive, indeed regal woman.
While I am on the topic, I'd also suggest Toni Morrison's entire body of work, but particularly the novel "Jazz" which was just one of those novels that touches on such profound humanity that you're left breathless by the end of it. In this novel, she describes a "deep down, spooky love" and WOW...you feel every horrendous moment of it and are richer for the experience.
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