International Women S Writing

The first collection of essays to explore the diversity of female identity as it is expressed in the literature of 29 world writers from 15 different countries.

Five essays address such themes as the relationship between feminist history and women's history, the use of the concept of "experience", the development of the history of gender, demographic history and women's history and the importance of post-structuralism to women's history.

WINNER - Prix du livre d’Ottawa 2016 WINNER - Prix Jean-Éthier-Blais 2015 WINNER - Prix Gabrielle-Roy 2014 FINALIST - Prix littéraire Trillium 2015 From the founding of New France to the present day, Quebec women have had to negotiate societal expectations placed on their gender. Tracing the evolution of life writing by Quebec women, Patricia Smart presents a feminist analysis of women’s struggles for autonomy and agency in a society that has continually emphasized the traditional roles of wife and mother. Writing Herself into Being examines published autobiographies and autobiographical fiction, as well as the annals of religious communities, letters, and a number of published and unpublished diaries by girls and women, to reveal a greater range of women’s experiences than proscribed, generalized roles. Through close readings of these texts Smart uncovers the authors’ perspectives on events such as the 1837 Rebellion, the Montreal cholera epidemic of 1848, convent school education, the struggle for women’s rights in the early twentieth century, and the Quiet Revolution. Drawing attention to the individuality of each writer while situating her within the social and ideological context of her era, this book further explores the ways women and girls reacted to, and often rebelled against, the constraints imposed on them by both Church and state. Written in a clear and compelling narrative style that brings women’s voices to life, Writing Herself into Being – the author’s own translation of her award-winning French-language book De Marie de l’Incarnation à Nelly Arcan: Se dire, se faire par l’écriture intime (Boréal, 2014) – offers a new and gendered view of various periods in Quebec history.

As authors and publishers, individuals and collectives, women significantly shaped the modernist movement. While figures such as Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein have received acclaim, authors from marginalized communities and those who wrote for mass, middlebrow audiences also created experimental and groundbreaking work. The essays in this volume explore formal aspects and thematic concerns of modernism while also challenging rigid notions of what constitutes literary value as well as the idea of a canon with fixed boundaries. The essays contextualize modernist women's writing in the material and political concerns of the early twentieth century and in life on the home front during wartime. They consider the original print contexts of the works and propose fresh digital approaches for courses ranging from high school through graduate school. Suggested assignments provide opportunities for students to write creatively and critically, recover forgotten literary works, and engage with their communities.

Women’s Worlds, a new anthology of women’s writing, makes available a broad range of women’s voices from across time, across classes, and across the globe in a slimmer, more flexible, and more affordable format. This new anthology includes selections from the 14th through the 21st centuries, from the first text by a woman published in English (Julian of Norwich’s Revelation of Divine Love) to selections by contemporary writers like Barbara Kingsolver, Alison Bechdel, and Zadie Smith. The selections are drawn from Britain and North America, but also from Africa, Asia, Oceania, the Middle East, and the Caribbean--wherever English is spoken. While classics of fiction, poetry, and drama are provided, the text also includes essays, song lyrics, letters, diary entries--even excerpts from domestic handbooks and a graphic memoir--to represent the full range of women’s voices. And Cultural Coordinates essays provide insights into customs and costumes from purdah to life before the Pill. To expand the choice of novels instructors wish to assign, McGraw-Hill also offers works from Library of Women's Literature at a discount.

A comprehensive, authoritative guide to women's fiction, prose, poetry and drama from around the world in the second half of the twentieth century.