“Remembering is a life experience; the problem comes when in solitude we [women] use that space to bring others to our present, to our center, nostalgically”
-“Solitude and Desolation”, Marcela Lagarde
Why do we speak about literature for women? This goes beyond a question of the sexes. The focus is on gender and the creation of stereotypes and limiting social roles. These works explore what it means “to be a woman,” and while both men and women can read these books, their interpretations will be different.
Intelligent women? That is to say, women that ask questions, analyse, aren’t self-limiting, and don’t feel incomplete in their solitude. These women freely explore their sexuality and break away from constricting social norms. That is what we are referring to when we speak of intelligent women. Here we list women writers that speak to other women, and dare to look at the world through a different lens.
The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir
(1949)
This french writer speaks to us with the same intensity with which she lived life. She was a woman that took risks in life and she was the partner of the father of existentialism, Jean Paul Sartre. The Second Sex starts of with a problem and a question,
“Are there women, really? (…) erudite persons say with a sigh: ‘Woman is losing her way, woman is lost.’ One wonders if women still exist, if they will always exist, whether or not it is desirable that they should, what place they occupy in this world, what their place should be.”
These provocative questions shed a light on the questions we pose to ourselves, what is a woman? Why am I a woman? She deconstructs institutions like marriage and the family. She unveils taboos that exist in the daily lives of women. Definitely a book that all humans of the XXI century must read.
Near to the Wild Heart, Clarice Lispector
(1944)
Lispector created feminine characters that went against the grain. In her novel, the narrative voice is a dangerous and free woman. Juana is always the odd one out, she is a lonely woman who lives inside the four walls of her mind. For her, the exterior world is filled with conflict, and she fears and admires it. She seeks freedom and this is both her struggle and curse for she is paralyzed with fear. It is a novel that comes face to face with the feminine condition. It is dense with grief and it comes to terms with what it means to be lonely.
The Inhabited Woman, Gioconda Belli
(1989)
The works of Belli submerge us into a world of external and internal conflicts. Her characters face the destruction of war and of love. Lavinia is a woman who must face the injustice of her times and social inertia. She becomes involved in situations that seek to remedy this social injustice, which in this case is the fight against Nicaragua’s dictator Somoza. In parallel, her discourse explores feminine sensuality.
She is a Latin American writer that explores the role of women in a social and political context.
The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler
(1996)
This high impact literary work has gone from the page to the stage. Many women will be able to identify with its highly erotic and emotive content. The author carried out over 200 interviews with women from different ages and nationalities and asked questions on taboo subjects on sex and intimacy. Its wide range of stories are painful, raunchy, and unexpected. For Ensler, breaking the taboos about the body and sex without shame is a pressing task we all have to carry out.
The Color Purple, Alice Walker
(1982)
The Color Purple shares the struggle of an African-American woman who must face racism and machismo in her country. It was adapted into film by Spielberg and it is a harsh criticism on the masculine sex. However, the novel addresses situations of violence-both physical and emotional- that women in this modern society experience. A novel that opens our eyes to the gender violence that is sometimes so subtle it can go undetected by many.
The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende
(1982)
This Chilean author threads a narrative filled with conflict, and social and spiritual tensions. It tells the story of the Trueba family across four generations. Love, death, politics, and ghosts are interweaved into the lives of the women in the family. The women must face social conflicts, injustice, and seek their own identifies. This book helps us understand women in their cultural and social context. Isabel Allende is a feminist icon around the world and her works are a reflection of this.
Americanah, Chimamanda Adichie
(2013)
It is the story of two Nigerian teenagers that must face racism and violence in their own country and culture. The author explores that tensions that exist between two worlds separated by an ocean: US and Nigeria. A novel that has been translated into 25 languages, it is a contemporary literary masterpiece not only for its narrative, but the contrasts that exist between African-Americans and Nigerians. It is a story that narrates the lives of the women from the ghettos and we see their stories of passion and conflict unfold.
The Shrouded Woman, María Luisa Bombal
(1938)
It is a surrealist novel that explores the feminine condition in a society marked by gender inequality. At the beginning of the novel, Ana María lies dead and she recalls significant events of her past life. In this supernatural context she thinks of all the things she wasn’t allowed to do. It is a severe criticism for those women that put their lives on hold and never question the role they play in this world.
A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Wolf
(1929)
Virginia Woolf is a pioneer in the world of literature. Her professional trajectory was marked by a strong will that went against the norm. Sexual ambivalence, war, neurosis, and the transformation of life through art were some of the subjects she put pen to paper. A Room of One’s Own is a call to women to be independent and build a space of their own in this world. “Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind,” she states.
