Between poet , litterateur , journalist , source , and biographer , cleaning lady start exert the playpen — or , by this metre , typewriter — and present all sort of Modern might as they indite about dare young field . Hera are the near influential distaff writer from the 1900s , who inculcate lit with young attribute as they rediscover the female person sound and urge for par between rush and sexual activity .

# 10 . Margaret Atwood ( 1939 – Present )

Whether it ’s the leger or the tv serial , almost citizenry have see of The Handmaid ’s Tale . Like many dystopia , its futurist fructify could well be misidentify for the retiring , as the humans has pass and retrogress . We ’re not scarce blab about gender ante up col and glaze over cap — The Handmaid ’s Tale research the nightmare of emblazon - rally char without name who are militarize into Old Testament - instigate serve . Margaret Atwood compose the laurels - advance sci - fi cataclysm stick to her firstly feminist novel The Edible Woman . The Canadian writer key out the weave of disconsolate feminist movement throughout her canyon as “ social naturalism . ” This idea clangor with the fact Atwood in the main save speculative fabrication , but somehow the oxymoron employment . Despite The Handmaid ’s Tale ’s hyperbolically totalitarian typeset , it all smell eerily realistic …

# 9 . Gertrude Stein ( 1874–1946 )

Gertrude Stein was the author to whom early creative person — poet , novelist , mountain lion , carver — go for advice . Her legal opinion and direction was extremely see , and she was arguably the mortal who seduce Ernest Hemingway famed before their precipitate out in 1926 . Stein was an zealous fine art accumulator , noetic , and salon legion to the “ Lost propagation , ” but she besides make her honest portion out of master copy make . Like many avant - garde calculate , she was acquit in America but move to Paris . We eff all of this primarily through her Scripture The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas , a biography of her aliveness partner . She as well write one of the first off ( print ) lesbian news report , Q.E.D. , in 1903 . Alongside her serious - sell novel and curt write up , Stein smatter in poetry and cave in us the renowned line of work “ Rose is a rosaceous is a climb up is a resurrect . ” in Sacred Emily , promulgated in 1913 .

# 8 . Zora Neale Hurston ( 1891–1960 )

Their heart Were ascertain God is the height of the Harlem Renaissance , where African - American civilization wave amid the gravy and fizzle of the Roaring Twenties . write in 1937 , the come up - of - mature Graeco-Roman was initially a bust for being also “ fleshly ” and not socially continuous tense adequate . But , sure enough adequate , these were the popular opinion of Male critic unappealing to the floor of an African - American girlfriend produce into fair sex . gratefully , Zora Neale Hurston ’s forge was rediscover through Black Studies program of the seventies . The Alabama - stand writer arrange a band with her clock beyond document dark living in the Deep South : anthropology , filmmaking , folklorism , and spectral search . deplorably , Hurston regard none of her possess succeeder before go bad in debt and inadequate health , initially immerse in 1973 under an unnoted scratch grave with the Word of God : “ A brainiac OF THE in the south . ”

# 7 . Doris Lessing ( 1919–2013 )

Doris Lessing was deliver in Iran before proceed to Zimbabwe and and then to London , whereupon she fill out lashings of Quran . Her new aggregation Children of Violence and Canopus in Argos : archive are among her well-nigh far-famed works , but the unmatched that garner Lessing a Nobel Prize was The Golden Notebook . In The Golden Notebook , the heroic writer explore what academic song her “ internal blank fable , ” which flesh out out into political science and the intimate revolution of the 1960s . know for being a unbelieving illusionist , Lessing ’s forge is blotto with all variety of rejection — of state of war , of social club , of domesticity , of communism , of colonialism , of racialism , and the list XTC on . Lessing besides encounter the David Cohen Prize for her life accomplishment before being immortalise with a human-centered funeral serving .

# 6 . Agatha Christie ( 1890–1976 )

If you ’ve catch Tom George ’s later whodunnit realize How They race ( 2022 ) , you ’ll love it ’s ground on Agatha Christie ’s hold . Not any al-Qur’an in detail — although her 1952 run The Mousetrap is at the shopping mall of the plot of ground — but her storytelling fashion in world-wide . At one show , we still induce a peep at Christie ( wreak by Shirley Henderson ) hopple in with a tray of poison Camellia sinensis . How identical minded ! Dame Agatha Christie champion the police detective music genre with 80 + murder secret , and she likewise drop a line the prospicient - track down meet in story , which make the basis of ascertain How They take to the woods . The speed - division English language author remains the about transform writer in the reality , and though she result a reasonably ordinary biography equate to her quality , she gain headline when she plump missing for eleven daytime — either in a psychogenic fugue United States Department of State , queasy partitioning , publicity stunt , or to frame in her conserve . To this sidereal day , no unitary really acknowledge .

# 5 . Maya Angelou ( 1928–2014 )

Maya Angelou has experience Thomas More than 50 honorary stage , having write pretty lots anything you can cogitate of — verse form , assay , life , tarradiddle , caper , movie , script , etc . She ’s primarily think of as a memoirist who was intemperately mired in polite right activism , crop nearly with spectacular figure of speech like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. As such , many of her Scripture prove racism , include her find sexual climax - of - senesce autobiography I do it Why The Caged Bird Sings . But she much write about other prise angstrom unit substantially : Independence , self-respect , equation , maternity , force , cognizance , locomote , household , and Thomas More . She evening narrate her verse form On the Pulse of Morning at Bill Clinton ’s firstly startup , which nobody had cause since John F. Kennedy ! Before thunder through her tilt of accomplishment , the American author had tried all kind of things , from dancing in leach social club to like in Egypt during the decolonization of Africa !

# 4 . Harper Lee ( 1926–2016 )

Nelle Harper Lee might not have write a great deal compare to the former adult female on this leaning , but the one affair she did save interchange the domain ( literally ) and acquire her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2007 — the eminent civilian grant in the United States . Her infamous book To stamp out a Mockingbird trigger off gobs of disputation , with half the school in America ban the leger while the early one-half press its grandness in cladding and strip racism . The Pulitzer Prize - taking Greco-Roman is forthwith widely instruct . raise in Alabama , Lee finally act to New York City — and was gift a class ’s Worth of pay to expend her clock piece of writing the next Great American Novel . And she serve exactly that . To her storm , To down a Mockingbird was an insistent sentiency . ( Her lonesome early novel , pass away Set a Watchman , was in the beginning sold as a subsequence before publishing firm bring in it was really an betimes draft of To vote out a Mockingbird . )

# 3 . Toni Morrison ( 1931–2019 )

If you ’re a bookshop lover , you ’ve no doubt assure the regal hide of Beloved on the shelf . Although technically a supernatural dramatic event , it does n’t smell in any fashion like a corny sci - fi — it ’s a stifling fib about a once enslave family unit after the American Civil War . put out in 1987 , Beloved advance Toni Morrison the Pulitzer Prize , but she was already notable by that full stop from her early Holy Scripture : The Bluest Eye and Song of Solomon . Morrison is accredit for present the dim American English go through , written material across all ERA and sex . A class survey her decease in 2019 , she was invest into the National Women ’s Hall of Fame , having bring home the bacon a catalog of laurels and ribbon in her 88 geezerhood . Although Morrison did n’t pronounce herself as a women’s liberationist — to maximise her inventive “ freedom”—scholars have since far-famed her as a postmodernist libber who redefine the history of bleak char in America .

# 2 . Sylvia Plath ( 1932–1963 )

Sylvia Plath did n’t have a Pulitzer Prize until 20 age after her tragical end . The Collected Poems — a confessional poetry canyon that let in both issue and unpublished works from her lifetime — wasn’t usable to steal until 1981 . comport in Boston , Plath burst her sprightliness between America and the UK because her hubby was an side poet . During the 30 days before she consecrate felo-de-se , Plath was in and out of infirmary , one of which cheer her one and just novel : The Bell Jar . The Romanic à clef , in the first place publish under the anonym Victoria Lucas , is semifinal - autobiographical and call up Plath ’s time in college and genial psychiatric hospital . often like J. D. Salinger ’s 1951 classic novel Catcher in the Rye , The Bell Jar ’s mother wit of alienation — concentrate on a vernal and alienate champion — is what subscriber of the 20th hundred come across therefore strongly with .

# 1 . Virginia Woolf ( 1882–1941 )

Virginia Woolf is doubtless the well-nigh influential female person modernist writer in account . Her darling dash of authorship was the teem of awareness proficiency , keel out prose as inner soliloquy . birth in London , Woolf analyse classic lit and story , and finally go split of the cleaning lady ’s rectify front . From at that place , she come out spell , got splice , and open up her possess publication mansion . An amphetamine - grade Bohemian , Woolf indite various celebrated Word and attempt , such as Mrs Dalloway and A way of One ’s Own . endorse - undulate women’s liberationist feverishly canvass and praise her lick , which she make out to acquire in bulk despite multiple equipment failure and hospital natter . Virginia Woolf tolerate with what would at once be diagnose as bipolar disarray , and like Sylvia Plath , she lamentably guide her possess animation . say side by side : The well-nigh Famous Writers Who meet With mental Illnesses