Sisters and Strangers: An Introduction to Contemporary Feminist Fiction

by Patricia Duncker

Since 1970 the women's movement has produced a rich and varied harvest of feminist fiction. New writers have produced work that is politically cogent as well as technically innovative. This book introduces the reader to these women and to the politics and polemic that inform their writing. The author considers the relationship between feminist fiction and women's writing, using recent developments in feminist literary criticism to direct her discussion. She explores the balance between the poetic and the polemical, and art versus propaganda. The role of autobiography in feminist fiction is stressed, together with original explorations of fables, myths and mythologies. Further chapters consider the importance of genre in feminist writing, and the new, powerful voices that have emerged from black women's writing and lesbian writing.

286 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Patricia Duncker attended school in England and, after a period spent working in Germany, she read English at Newnham College, Cambridge.

She studied for a D.Phil. in English and German Romanticism at St Hugh's College, Oxford.

From 1993-2002, she taught Literature at the University of Aberystwyth, and from 2002-2006, has been Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, teaching the MA in Prose Fiction.

In January 2007, she moved to the University of Manchester where she is Professor of Modern Literature.