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A Room of One's Own

The second episode of this six part series looks at Women's rights which have been at the heart of so many of the most influential English novels.

The second episode of this six part series looks at Women's rights which have been at the heart of so many of the most influential English novels. Using performed readings and with contributions from contemporary novelists and critics the series explores the power that novels continue to have today. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale has long been a famous rallying cry for feminism. The battle for women's suffrage was the subject of the propagandist novel No Surrender, written by Constance Maud in 1911. Powerful works like this were largely forgotten until feminist imprints like Virago republished them in the 1970s. And the rediscovery and the reprinting of Afro-American novelists such as, Alice Walker and her lacerating The Color Purple have brought issues of female emancipation to a whole new generation of readers all around the world.

30 minutes

Last on

Wed 24 Jun 2020 07:30GMT

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