“What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to have a body?” Part One: Summer The novel opens with Natsuko, a struggling writer in […]
French literature
She Came to Stay
“I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. […]
American literature
The Bell Jar
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a […]
American literature
The Bean Trees
“There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, ‘There now, hang on, you’ll get over it.’ Sadness is more or […]
American literature
The Color Purple
“You better not never tell nobody but God. It’d kill your mammy.” The novel opens with Celie, a poor Black girl in early 20th-century rural Georgia, writing letters […]
English literature
The Golden Notebook
“The two women were alone in the London flat.” Free Women: 1 The novel opens with Anna Wulf and her friend Molly Jacobs reflecting on their lives as […]