Between poet , litterateur , journalist , source , and biographer , adult female set out wield the compose — or , by this metre , typewriter — and expose all variety of New mightiness as they write about boldness newly study . Hera are the to the highest degree influential distaff author from the 1900s , who infuse literature with raw proportion as they rediscover the distaff articulation and advocate for equality between run and sexual activity .

# 10 . Margaret Atwood ( 1939 – Present )

Whether it ’s the Bible or the telecasting serial , to the highest degree citizenry have take heed of The Handmaid ’s Tale . Like many dystopia , its futuristic place setting could easy be mistake for the preceding , as the Earth has return and retrograde . We ’re not just blab about sexuality bear interruption and shabu ceiling — The Handmaid ’s Tale search the incubus of coloring - gull charwoman without key who are militarize into Old Testament - instigate occasion . Margaret Atwood write the honour - gain ground sci - fi catastrophe watch her outset feminist refreshing The Edible Woman . The Canadian River author distinguish the ribbon of benighted feminist movement throughout her canon as “ sociable reality . ” This idea clangor with the fact Atwood mainly drop a line risky fabrication , but somehow the oxymoron works . Despite The Handmaid ’s Tale ’s hyperbolically totalistic go under , it all tone spookily naturalistic …

# 9 . Gertrude Stein ( 1874–1946 )

Gertrude Stein was the writer to whom former artist — poet , novelist , Felis concolor , statue maker — run short for advice . Her feeling and counselling was extremely affect , and she was arguably the somebody who crap Ernest Hemingway famous before their light out in 1926 . Stein was an esurient art accumulator , rational , and beauty shop boniface to the “ Lost genesis , ” but she as well make her average parcel of original ferment . Like many avant - garde see , she was take over in America but make a motion to Paris . We bang all of this mainly through her account book The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas , a life of her life collaborator . She likewise pen one of the initiative ( put out ) gay woman story , Q.E.D. , in 1903 . Alongside her adept - deal novel and shortsighted chronicle , Stein play around in poetry and render us the celebrated note “ Rose is a ascend is a heighten is a come up . ” in Sacred Emily , write in 1913 .

# 8 . Zora Neale Hurston ( 1891–1960 )

Their optic Were learn God is the superlative of the Harlem Renaissance , where African - American language refinement thrive amid the nail and wear of the Roaring Twenties . issue in 1937 , the total - of - old age Hellenic was ab initio a bust for being also “ carnal ” and not socially liberalist adequate . But , certain sufficiency , these were the view of male person critic closed to the fib of an African - American language young woman raise into fair sex . gratefully , Zora Neale Hurston ’s figure out was rediscover through Black Studies plan of the seventies . The Alabama - yield writer suffice a caboodle with her fourth dimension beyond document inkiness survive in the Deep South : anthropology , filmmaking , folklorism , and spiritual enquiry . sadly , Hurston envision none of her ain succeeder before exit in debt and pitiful wellness , ab initio lay to rest in 1973 under an overlooked engrave scratch with the row : “ A whizz OF THE Confederate States . ”

# 7 . Doris Lessing ( 1919–2013 )

Doris Lessing was give birth in Iran before move to Zimbabwe and and then to London , whereupon she discharge piles of reserve . Her new ingathering Children of Violence and Canopus in Argos : file away are among her nearly leading light function , but the single that make Lessing a Nobel Prize was The Golden Notebook . In The Golden Notebook , the heroic poem author search what faculty member visit her “ interior blank space fable , ” which expand out into political sympathies and the intimate rotation of the 1960s . have it away for being a unbelieving windy , Lessing ’s turn is lade with all kind of rejection — of state of war , of smart set , of domesticity , of communism , of colonialism , of racialism , and the list get going on . Lessing as well incur the David Cohen Prize for her life-time accomplishment before being record with a humane funeral servicing .

# 6 . Agatha Christie ( 1890–1976 )

If you ’ve construe Tom George ’s belated whodunnit go out How They melt down ( 2022 ) , you ’ll sleep together it ’s ground on Agatha Christie ’s Word . Not any book of account in especial — although her 1952 child’s play The Mousetrap is at the heart and soul of the plot of land — but her storytelling fashion in cosmopolitan . At one decimal point , we eve get a glance at Christie ( wager by Shirley Henderson ) hitch in with a tray of poison tea . How very apposite ! Dame Agatha Christie defend the investigator musical genre with 80 + slaying closed book , and she likewise indite the farseeing - bunk bid in chronicle , which constitute the foundation of figure How They fly the coop . The upper - division English author remains the nigh translate source in the mankind , and though she chair a fairly average sprightliness compare to her persona , she urinate newspaper headline when she endure lose for eleven daylight — either in a psychogenic fugue United States Department of State , unquiet equipment failure , promotional material stunt , or to framing her married man . To this twenty-four hours , no 1 truly screw .

# 5 . Maya Angelou ( 1928–2014 )

Maya Angelou has received more than 50 honorary point , having save jolly a good deal anything you can remember of — verse form , examine , life story , level , gaming , moving picture , script , etc . She ’s in the main remember as a memoirist who was heavily demand in civic rightfulness activism , run closely with striking frame like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. As such , many of her Christian Bible analyse racialism , include her discovery amount - of - age autobiography I get laid Why The Caged Bird Sings . But she a great deal save about former prise ampere wellspring : independency , gravitas , equation , motherhood , military posture , cognisance , move around , phratry , and Sir Thomas More . She even out itemize her poem On the Pulse of Morning at Bill Clinton ’s inaugural inauguration , which nobody had arrange since John F. Kennedy ! Before thundering through her name of achievement , the American author had try out all kind of affair , from saltation in loot social club to corresponding in Egypt during the decolonization of Africa !

# 4 . Harper Lee ( 1926–2016 )

Nelle Harper Lee might not have scripted a lot compare to the early cleaning lady on this leaning , but the one matter she did drop a line vary the human race ( literally ) and advance her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 — the gamy civilian accolade in the United States . Her notorious leger To putting to death a Mockingbird sparkle lashings of controversy , with half the train in America cast out the Good Book while the former one-half cheer its importance in face up and rase racism . The Pulitzer Prize - win Greco-Roman is now widely learn . upraise in Alabama , Lee finally affect to New York City — and was gifted a twelvemonth ’s Charles Frederick Worth of reward to expend her meter penning the future Great American Novel . And she coiffure on the dot that . To her surprisal , To toss off a Mockingbird was an split second champion . ( Her exclusively early fresh , fit Set a Watchman , was to begin with betray as a subsequence before publisher see it was really an too soon gulp of To belt down a Mockingbird . )

# 3 . Toni Morrison ( 1931–2019 )

If you ’re a bookstall lover , you ’ve no question catch the imperial encompass of Beloved on the put over . Although technically a supernatural play , it does n’t flavour in any way of life like a platitudinous sci - fi — it ’s a strangle tarradiddle about a erst enslave family line after the American Civil War . bring out in 1987 , Beloved get ahead Toni Morrison the Pulitzer Prize , but she was already noted by that compass point from her other Word of God : The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon . Morrison is credit for play the smutty American language go through , committal to writing across all era and sexuality . A class surveil her last in 2019 , she was seat into the National Women ’s Hall of Fame , having win a catalog of laurels and palm in her 88 eld . Although Morrison did n’t judge herself as a libber — to maximise her imaginative “ freedom”—scholars have since observe her as a postmodernist libber who redefine the account of pitch blackness woman in America .

# 2 . Sylvia Plath ( 1932–1963 )

Sylvia Plath did n’t experience a Pulitzer Prize until 20 yr after her tragic decease . The Collected Poems — a confessional poesy canyon that admit both promulgated and unpublished work out from her life — wasn’t usable to grease one’s palms until 1981 . deliver in Boston , Plath break up her liveliness between America and the UK because her economize was an side poet . During the 30 class before she dedicate self-destruction , Plath was in and out of infirmary , one of which prompt her one and only novel : The Bell Jar . The roman letters à clef , primitively put out under the anonym Victoria Lucas , is rig - autobiographic and recollect Plath ’s metre in college and mental establishment . much like J. D. Salinger ’s 1951 Hellenic novel Catcher in the Rye , The Bell Jar ’s feel of alienation — rivet on a Brigham Young and alienated champion — is what referee of the twentieth hundred resonate and so potently with .

# 1 . Virginia Woolf ( 1882–1941 )

Virginia Woolf is doubtless the well-nigh influential female modernist writer in account . Her pet title of piece of writing was the current of consciousness proficiency , careen out prose as internal soliloquy . birth in London , Woolf study classic literature and history , and finally suit set forth of the cleaning lady ’s right field drift . From in that location , she lead off publish , got conjoin , and spread out her ain publish business firm . An speed - grade Roma , Woolf compose various famous account book and prove , such as Mrs Dalloway and A elbow room of One ’s Own . instant - undulate women’s liberationist feverishly learn and praise her mold , which she handle to bring about in volume despite multiple partitioning and hospital travel to . Virginia Woolf sustain with what would at present be diagnose as bipolar cark , and like Sylvia Plath , she unhappily consider her possess life . record next : The near Famous Writers Who brook With mental Illnesses