The most famous women writers. Overview, history and interesting facts

Strong women in literature have always been. You can recall Shikibu Murasaki, who worked at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries in Japan, or Arteya from Kirinea, who wrote about 40 books in the first century BC. e. And if you think about the fact that women have long been denied the opportunity to receive an education, then the heroines of past centuries are admired. They were able to defend their right to creativity in the male world.

Women writers began to feel a little freer in the 19th century: they still faced severe discrimination on the basis of sex, but they were still printed. Basically, the ladies were allowed to do poetry and write light love affairs. Moreover, they earned much less than their male counterparts.

But over time, the situation became better and better, and today the female name on the cover will not surprise anyone. The gold fund of world literature contains many works written by women. And some authors have won the love of readers around the world.

Why do women write under a male pseudonym?

Female writers with male pseudonyms are not uncommon today, but a century earlier there were much more. Why do authors prefer the male version of the pseudonym? There are several answers to this question:

1. Women who write books have been discriminated against before. Books were not printed, their work did not interest male audiences, and they received less for their work. The male name on the cover solved most of the problems. If someone thinks that this attitude to female authors in the past is deeply mistaken: writers are not infringed on payment issues, but even today the female name on the cover scares away some of the potential readers.
2. For a more serious attitude to the work. Women's books, according to all the canons, are considered light, entertaining or tearful, suffering. In order to take work more seriously, writers depersonalize their gender.
3. To read a book. The start of a beginner in the literary world may be unsuccessful because of one name: the male part will ignore the well-written novel, and the female part will consider it unsuccessful, since it was originally designed for a different audience.
4. In the 18th and 19th centuries, women writers often took pseudonyms to protect their lives, since the practice of literature for a woman of that time was indecent, almost shameful, and the authors often suffered from their scandalous popularity.
5. To earn more. Today, the fees of the authors depend on the promotion of the name, but not so long ago, the authors of the man received more for equivalent work.

Which of the famous authors hid their gender?

Here are the most famous writers with male pseudonyms:

1. Marco Vovchok (1833-1907). Maria Vilinsky is famous for her stories about the life of the Russian people during serfdom and the struggle for freedom.
2. George Sand (1804-1876). She is Aurora Dupin, married to Dudevan. An incredibly strong and strong-willed woman who took a male pseudonym as a symbol of female freedom. She behaved like a man in society, that is, scandalous for her time and freely started novels. She has written many novels, short stories and plays.
3. Sisters Bronte. Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848) and En (1820-1849) originally wrote under the pseudonym Brothers Bell, the first works they published on their own money, and the novels were not successful. Charlotte’s novel “Jane Eyre”, which was published under the real name, changed everything, and after that the books of the sisters began to be popular.
4. George Eliot (1819-1880). The male pseudonym provided the girl with privacy. The most famous work is “Mill on the Floss”.
5. Max Fry (1965). Under the pseudonym hides Svetlana Martynchik (early works were created in collaboration with Igor Stepin).
6. Joan Rowling (1965). The name is real, but on the advice of the publisher on the cover of the first book there were only initials, so the author’s gender remained in doubt.

19th Century

We already mentioned the most famous women writers of the 19th century - these are George Sand, the Bronte sisters, George Elliot, Marco Vovchok. You can still recall Zinaida Gippius, Durov Alexander, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley and Ada Cross. The situation with poetry was somewhat better - only one of our country gathered a whole bunch of talented poets, such as E. Beketova, A. Barkova, N. Grushko, S. Dubnov, V. Ilyin, F. Kogan, L. Lesnaya, N. Poplavskaya , V. Rudich and M. Lokhvitskaya. But it should be noted that the male world was indulgent towards the poets of the silver age, downplaying and underestimating their literary talent. The husbands of the poetesses were sympathetic, because instead of normal women's affairs, their wives were engaged in "stupidity."

20th Century

In 1909, a significant event took place. For the first time, the Nobel Prize in literature was awarded to a woman - Selma Lagerlef, paying tribute to her work.

Since that time, women writers of the 20th century have been awarded several more times:

• Grace Deledd in 1926 for poetry.
• Sigrid Winset in 1928 for descriptive works on the Scandinavian Middle Ages.
• Pearl Buck in 1938 for a work dedicated to the life of Chinese peasants.
• Gabriela Mistral in 1945 for poetry.
• Nelly Sachs in 1966 for his works on the fate of the Jewish people.
• Nadine Gordimer in 1991 for the original epic.
• Wislava Shimborskaya in 1996 for poetry.

In recent times, awards were given to Elfrid Jelinek, Doriss Lessing, Greta Muller, Alice Monroe and Belarusian writer Svetlana Aleksevich.

But here's what is interesting: despite the enormous contribution of these authors to the spiritual development of all mankind, readers more remember and appreciate the work of completely different authors. And they prefer to read books by other women writers, namely:

1. Margaret Mitchell (1900-1949), with his most famous novel, Gone With the Wind, bypasses the popularity of The Lord of the Rings.
2. Ursula Le Guin (1929-2018). More recently, the world has lost one of the best fantasy authors. Her best works are a series of "Earthsea" and the Hain cycle.
3. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941). One of the best novelists of her time. The most popular works are Mrs. Dalloway, Orlando and The Clock.
4. Andre Norton (1912-2005). The greatest author of fantasy and classic science fiction.
5. Astrid Lindgren (1907-2002). She can only be infinitely thanked for a happy childhood in company with Carloson, Peppy Longstocking, the tomboy Emil from Lenneberg, the young detective Calle and the Lionheart brothers.
6. Harper Lee (1926-2016). The author of the novel “To Kill a Mockingbird”. And although the writer wrote only two books, she deserves her place of honor in the hall of fame.

Masters of the detective genre

Women writers of detective stories are not uncommon in our world. Even in our country there are many authors specializing in this literary direction. It can be serious books, close to reality, like Alexandra Marinina’s, or lighter entertaining reading, like Daria Dontsova and Yulia Shilova, or with a romantic line like Tatyana Ustinova. But in any case, these works cannot be called outstanding. Yes, these Russian women writers are very popular, and their books diverge in a large print run, but their works, according to some critics, only devalue the cultural heritage of the country.

Among foreign authors, the following authors can be distinguished:

• Gillian Flynn (1971), author of the disappeared thriller and Sharp Objects.
• Tess Geritson (1953), author of a series of detectives about Jane Rizzoli and many thrillers.
• Donna Tartt (1963), became famous for the novel "Goldfinch", later wrote the detective "Secret History".
• Liana Moriarty (1966), author of The Big Little Lies.

If you look at the list of the best masters of the detective genre around the world, then there will be only one female name in it - Agatha Christie (1890-1976). Gorgeous and beautiful, amazing Agatha Christie! The literary “mother” of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot and other slightly less well-known book detectives. The works of Agatha Christie never touched on those outright violence and sexual crimes, and although sometimes they raised various social problems, mainly in her novels and stories the heroes solved the classic puzzle "Who is the killer?"

Modern writers of Russia

Women in our country write a lot and often. But for the most part these are mediocre books designed for a female audience. For example, all fans of female fantasy love are familiar with the work of Zvezdnaya, Kosukhina, Zhiltsova, Gromyko and Myakhar. Their novels cannot be called bad, they are designed for a specific target audience and fully meet the needs of the mass buyer. But they are not remembered at all and are written as in a pattern.

There are other modern Russian writers, women who are known not only in Russia but also abroad. They can already be called classics of Russian literature, or rather the era of postmodernism. These names are:

• Tatyana Tolstaya (1951). Included in the "100 Most Influential Women in Russia", continues to exploit the traditional Russian literature technique, namely to reveal the "tragedy of a little man."
• Lyudmila Ulitskaya (1943). Her works are translated into 25 languages ​​of the world.
• Lyudmila Petrushevskaya (1938). Russian writer, prose writer and poetess.

There are others, no less, but for most people, and more famous Russian women writers. Their books are sold in huge numbers, but they regularly take places in the ratings of "worst of worst."

So this is:

• Darya Dontsova.
• Alexandra Marinina.
• Tatyana Ustinova.
• Polina Dashkova.
• Julia Shilova.
• Anna Malysheva.
• Maria Arbatova.

Love Story Authors

The most famous women writers in the modern world have often become famous not due to their great literary talent, but because their work unexpectedly “hit” the audience. This is usually the case with love stories and books for teenage girls.

And today, in the rays of world fame, the following modern women writers bathe:

• Sylvia Day. Master of a romantic and erotic novel.
• Veronica Roth. The author of the series "Divergent".
• Casandra Claire. An amateur who wrote fanfiction unexpectedly received worldwide acclaim for the series The Mortal Instruments.
• Stephanie Mayer. The author of the super-popular vampire Twilight.
• E.L. James. She became famous for a series of novels about a millionaire with a rich imagination called "50 shades of gray."
• Susan Collins. Known to all as the author of The Hunger Games, but she also wrote a good teenage fantasy, Gregor Overhead.

Apart from the entire list of women writers, I would like to dwell on a few authors. They not only managed to become the best, these writers influenced the life of entire generations.

Agatha Christie

This woman writer considered “10 Little Indians” to be her best work, or as he is called today for reasons of political correctness, “And There Was No One”. Let's disagree with the author - she has a lot of great detectives, and, of course, “10 Little Indians” is one of them. Like “Murder on the Orient Express”, “Crooked House”, “Villa White Horse”, “Broken Mirror, Ringing” and many other excellent works.

Her books are "closed detectives" when the circle of suspects is limited, and only the right logical chain and evidence will help expose the criminal. The books of Agatha Christie have been filmed many times, and continue to be done regularly. Only in the last 3 years 3 films and one series based on the works of the writer were born.

Joanne Rowling

The life of Joan Rowling is a dream not only of any woman writer, but also of writers in general. At one point, you are unemployed, living on benefits, and a year later - the author of the best fantasy series in the world, receiving millions for his work. Books on Harry Potter adore billions of people around the world - children, adolescents, adults and respectable men, housewives and even other writers. Stephen King himself confessed his boundless love to the "Potterians."

Astrid Lindgren

Among all the famous women writers, Astrid Lindgren deserves special attention. Everyone heard the story that fairy tales about “Pippi Longstocking” appeared on the basis of those stories that Astrid Lindgren told her daughter at night. But few people know that in the youth of the future celebrity they had to give their newborn son to a foster family, since they did not have the financial ability to raise him. And only years later, she was able to take the boy to her family.

Perhaps this step influenced the entire work of the famous writer - a woman who could not forgive herself, the fact that she abandoned her son, shone all the light on the children. She wrote a lot of children's fairy tales and books for teenagers, and thanks to her speech in the Swedish parliament, a law aimed at protecting children was first introduced in European countries.

Jane Austen

The first lady of English literature, who created vivid, figurative, at the same time satirical and romantic works. Jane Austen (1775-1817) had an amazing gift - she saw through all human weaknesses of character and a penchant for vices and aptly reflected what she saw on paper. Her best works are Pride and Prejudice, Reason and Feeling, Emma.

Books by Jane Austen have been filmed several times. Only the novel "Pride and Prejudice" was shot 9 times - the first time in 1938, the last - in 2005, with Keira Knightley in the title role. And this is not counting the many movie adaptations for different cultures and the use of the idea of ​​the book in films with a different name.

Mary Shelley

This young rebel was not destined to live the boring life of an ordinary woman. Mary Shelley (1797-1851 gg.) - The daughter of a writer and an ardent feminist and atheist philosopher, became the founder of a whole genre, namely science fiction. Her novel “Frankenstein or modern Prometheus” was repeatedly played out in the literary world and in cinema. Other works of Mary Shelley - “Matilda”, “Lodor”, “Faulkner”, are not so famous.