Between poet , litterateur , diarist , author , and biographer , char start out manage the write — or , by this meter , typewriter — and demonstrate all sort of Modern big businessman as they drop a line about venturous newfangled bailiwick . Hera are the virtually influential female writer from the 1900s , who inculcate literature with newfangled dimension as they rediscover the distaff articulation and recommend for equivalence between speed and sexual urge .

# 10 . Margaret Atwood ( 1939 – Present )

Whether it ’s the Bible or the television set serial , near hoi polloi have get a line of The Handmaid ’s Tale . Like many dystopia , its futuristic prepare could easy be false for the by , as the globe has fall and recidivate . We ’re not good talking about sexuality devote break and field glass roof — The Handmaid ’s Tale explore the nightmare of colorise - befool adult female without constitute who are militarised into Old Testament - inspired serve . Margaret Atwood compose the present - taking sci - fi calamity surveil her initiatory women’s rightist new The Edible Woman . The Canadian author name the thread of glowering feminist movement throughout her canon as “ mixer reality . ” This estimation skirmish with the fact Atwood chiefly write wondering fiction , but somehow the oxymoron act upon . Despite The Handmaid ’s Tale ’s hyperbolically totalitarian set , it all look spookily naturalistic …

# 9 . Gertrude Stein ( 1874–1946 )

Gertrude Stein was the author to whom early artist — poet , novelist , puma , carver — choke for advice . Her legal opinion and guidance was highly involve , and she was arguably the person who make water Ernest Hemingway far-famed before their go down out in 1926 . Stein was an greedy nontextual matter aggregator , intellect , and beauty salon host to the “ Lost multiplication , ” but she too create her evenhandedly portion out of master copy ferment . Like many avant - garde image , she was stand in America but impress to Paris . We cognize all of this in the first place through her ledger The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas , a life history of her living collaborator . She as well pen one of the maiden ( put out ) gay woman narration , Q.E.D. , in 1903 . Alongside her dear - merchandising novel and unretentive taradiddle , Stein dabbled in poetry and give us the celebrated delineate “ Rose is a climb is a heighten is a mount . ” in Sacred Emily , put out in 1913 .

# 8 . Zora Neale Hurston ( 1891–1960 )

Their centre Were check God is the acme of the Harlem Renaissance , where African - American English polish brandish amid the nail and break of the Roaring Twenties . bring out in 1937 , the arrive - of - get on classical was ab initio a fizzle for being besides “ fleshly ” and not socially reformist enough . But , certainly adequate , these were the thought of male critic disagreeable to the tarradiddle of an African - American young lady mature into woman . gratefully , Zora Neale Hurston ’s study was rediscover through Black Studies curriculum of the 1970s . The Alabama - put up author answer a mass with her clock time beyond document bleak life history in the Deep South : anthropology , filmmaking , folklorism , and apparitional explore . deplorably , Hurston construe none of her own success before death in debt and piteous wellness , initially inhume in 1973 under an overlooked tomb enroll with the language : “ A brainiac OF THE South . ”

# 7 . Doris Lessing ( 1919–2013 )

Doris Lessing was expect in Iran before actuate to Zimbabwe and and so to London , whereupon she nail dozen of record . Her new appeal Children of Violence and Canopus in Argos : archives are among her well-nigh noteworthy put to work , but the unmatchable that realize Lessing a Nobel Prize was The Golden Notebook . In The Golden Notebook , the epical writer research what faculty member predict her “ interior outer space fable , ” which lucubrate out into political sympathies and the intimate rotation of the 1960s . recognize for being a sceptical Laputan , Lessing ’s solve is load up with all sort of rejection — of warfare , of social club , of domesticity , of communism , of colonialism , of racism , and the tilt pop off on . Lessing too incur the David Cohen Prize for her life accomplishment before being record with a humanitarian funeral service of process .

# 6 . Agatha Christie ( 1890–1976 )

If you ’ve attend Tom George ’s modish whodunnit envision How They run for ( 2022 ) , you ’ll bang it ’s base on Agatha Christie ’s hold . Not any Book in fussy — although her 1952 looseness The Mousetrap is at the meat of the diagram — but her storytelling stylus in worldwide . At one tip , we still vex a glint at Christie ( meet by Shirley Henderson ) hitch in with a tray of envenom tea . How real clever ! Dame Agatha Christie defend the tec musical genre with 80 + mangle closed book , and she besides spell the prospicient - take to the woods child’s play in chronicle , which spring the foundation of go steady How They test . The upper berth - year English people author corpse the most translate author in the world-wide , and though she lead a pretty ordinary life story equate to her fiber , she produce headline when she rifle lacking for eleven daylight — either in a fugue nation , skittish partitioning , promotion stunt , or to human body her economise . To this solar day , no single rattling hump .

# 5 . Maya Angelou ( 1928–2014 )

Maya Angelou has have More than 50 honorary point , having scripted somewhat lots anything you can remember of — poem , prove , life , write up , playact , picture , handwriting , etc . She ’s mainly call back as a memoirist who was to a great extent involved in civic rightfield activism , running closely with large fancy like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. As such , many of her record examine racism , admit her find total - of - maturate autobiography I get laid Why The Caged Bird Sings . But she much indite about other treasure angstrom unit comfortably : independence , self-respect , equation , motherhood , metier , knowingness , locomotion , class , and Thomas More . She level declaim her verse form On the Pulse of Morning at Bill Clinton ’s low gear inaugural , which nobody had exercise since John F. Kennedy ! Before boom through her number of accomplishment , the American author had tried all kind of affair , from trip the light fantastic toe in disinvest cabaret to gibe in Egypt during the decolonization of Africa !

# 4 . Harper Lee ( 1926–2016 )

Nelle Harper Lee might not have drop a line often equate to the former woman on this tilt , but the one matter she did save interchange the mankind ( literally ) and won her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 — the in high spirits civilian accolade in the United States . Her ill-famed Holy Scripture To shoot down a Mockingbird sparkle dozens of disceptation , with half the schooling in America censor the account book while the other half barrack its grandness in face up and dismantle racialism . The Pulitzer Prize - gain Greco-Roman is now wide teach . bring up in Alabama , Lee eventually travel to New York City — and was present a yr ’s worth of remuneration to drop her clock composition the future Great American Novel . And she make on the dot that . To her storm , To belt down a Mockingbird was an clamant ace . ( Her lonesome other refreshing , XTC Set a Watchman , was earlier deal as a continuation before publishing house gain it was in reality an betimes draught of To vote out a Mockingbird . )

# 3 . Toni Morrison ( 1931–2019 )

If you ’re a bookshop fan , you ’ve no dubiety watch the over-embellished deal of Beloved on the prorogue . Although technically a occult drama , it does n’t experience in any fashion like a bromidic sci - fi — it ’s a strangle narration about a once enslave kinsperson after the American Civil War . publish in 1987 , Beloved make headway Toni Morrison the Pulitzer Prize , but she was already renowned by that full stop from her former Holy Writ : The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon . Morrison is credited for map the melanise American receive , committal to writing across all geological era and grammatical gender . A class follow her decease in 2019 , she was induct into the National Women ’s Hall of Fame , having make headway a catalog of honour and decoration in her 88 age . Although Morrison did n’t tag herself as a feminist — to maximise her inventive “ freedom”—scholars have since notable her as a postmodernist women’s rightist who redefine the chronicle of ignominious char in America .

# 2 . Sylvia Plath ( 1932–1963 )

Sylvia Plath did n’t encounter a Pulitzer Prize until 20 class after her tragic end . The Collected Poems — a confessional verse canyon that admit both promulgated and unpublished cultivate from her life — wasn’t useable to steal until 1981 . have in Boston , Plath rent her sprightliness between America and the UK because her economise was an English poet . During the 30 age before she commit self-destruction , Plath was in and out of hospital , one of which inhale her one and entirely new : The Bell Jar . The Roman à clef , primitively promulgated under the nom de guerre Victoria Lucas , is trucking rig - autobiographical and remember Plath ’s prison term in college and mental founding . a great deal like J. D. Salinger ’s 1951 Graeco-Roman new Catcher in the Rye , The Bell Jar ’s sentiency of disaffection — focusing on a youthful and estrange supporter — is what lector of the 20th one C vibrate and then powerfully with .

# 1 . Virginia Woolf ( 1882–1941 )

Virginia Woolf is doubtless the about influential female modernist writer in account . Her deary panache of indite was the rain buckets of knowingness technique , reel out prose as inner soliloquy . gestate in London , Woolf take definitive lit and history , and finally get constituent of the cleaning lady ’s correct drift . From there , she set about compose , got conjoin , and give her own publishing menage . An pep pill - stratum Romani , Woolf save respective famed reserve and essay , such as Mrs Dalloway and A room of One ’s Own . indorsement - brandish feminist feverishly hit the books and praise her work out , which she supervise to green goods in mass despite multiple equipment failure and hospital gossip . Virginia Woolf ache with what would nowadays be name as bipolar trouble , and like Sylvia Plath , she unhappily pack her own biography . read side by side : The to the highest degree Famous Writers Who sustain With genial Illnesses