On toughness - toughest writers of all time?

[WhisperTree]

With a view to adding to my TBR pile, I've been trying to think of the toughest, least sentimental female authors of all time, with an emphasis on midcentury to the present day.

The names which keep coming to mind are North Americans and Continental Europeans. I must have a blindspot for these fair isles, which must surely have their own tradition of stylistic toughness.

Help me out, please?

Who are some of the toughest, least sentimental British fiction and non-fiction writers - the ones who might be criticised as e.g. "cold", "heartless" etc because their style leaves space for the reader to feel their own feels

Plus another vote for Barbara Pym.

Angela carter.

Also Barbara Comyns, a touch of mistletoe. Brilliant book

Oh, I just asked for the Sisters By A River for my birthday, I should maybe have gone for this instead. Spoons and Vets Daughter ones I loved.

It's one of my all time faves. Dark, funny and absolutely without sentiment

Great British writers I find hard to read:

John Ruskin
Walter Pater
Henry James (American, but lived much of his life in the UK and set many of his books in England)
Virginia Woolf
Hilary Mantel
Joseph Conrad (Polish, but became a British citizen and set most of his works here)
J. G. Ballard (not stylistically difficult, but I'm always a bit lost when I read him)
Anthony Burgess (wonderful writer, and one of my favourites, but again I often feel lost – he blinds you with his prose)

For anyone whose imagination is captured by this topic, I made a video review. Wishing you all the flow this weekend 🌊🩶

Zadie Smith? How is she tough?

2nd tranche of thoughts while reading in pursuit of the toughest British & Irish women novelists of midcentury-present.

This time, Iris Murdoch's The Unicorn.

Next stop, AS Byatt's Possession.