The Oxford Book of Women's Writing

About this book

Provocative and compulsively readable lively engaging and brilliantly representative The Oxford Book of Womens Writing in the United States presents short stories poems essays plays speeches performance pieces erotica diaries correspondence and even a few recipes from nearly one hundred of our best women writers. Reveling in the awareness that the best U.S. womens writing is quite simply some of the best in the world editors Linda Wagner-Martin and Cathy N. Davidson have chosen selections spanning four centuries and reflecting the rich variety of American womens lives. The collection embraces the perspectives of age and youth the traditional and the revolutionary the public and the private. Here is Judith Sargent Murrays 1790 essay "On the Equality of the Sexes " journalist Martha Gellhorns "Last Words on Vietnam 1987 " and Mary Gordons homage to the ghosts of Ellis Island "More Than Just a Shrine"; powerful short stories by Zora Neale Hurston Edith Wharton Cynthia Ozick and Toni Morrison; letters from Abigail Adams Sarah Moore Grimkeaccent Emma Goldman and Georgia OKeeffe; Alice B. Toklass recipe "Bass for Picasso " and erotic offerings from Anais Nin and Rita Mae Brown. The moving autobiography of Zitkala- Saaccent whose mother was a Sioux tells us more about "otherness" than any sociological treatise while Janice Mirikitanis and Nellie Wongs poems about being young Asian-American women like Alice Walkers meditation on the beauty of growing old speak to all readers. A thought-provoking introduction and descriptive headnotes explore the history of womens writing in ways that help the reader to understand the American women who have used language to change their worlds and to remember the past and as a means of etching their deepest fondest dreams. A joy to read The Oxford Book of Womens Writing in the United States is filled with eye-opening and unexpected selections. It is the perfect book for anyone fascinated by womens writing and womens lives.