radfem fiction recommendations?

[radfemfictionred]

Can anyone recommend any novels/ poetry influenced by (radical) feminism? Thanks (not atwood or lessing)

Native Tongue is 99p on kindle

www.amazon.co.uk/Native-Tongue-MASTERWORKS-Suzette-Haden-ebook/dp/B07P6L1F94/?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

The Women’s Room, by Marilyn French. Very hard hitting. It was the first feminist novel I read, back in 1978, and I’ve been a rad fem ever since.

I just read Salt Slow by Julia Armfield - book of short stories, macabre and darkly funny, all with a feminist bent. Absolutely brilliant.

I’m a big science fiction fan so my feminist fiction reading list is SF heavy.

I love Ursula Le Guin (obviously from my username!) but The Left Hand of Darkness is a great place to start.

Susan Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue and The Judas Rose are due for a reprint over the next few months as part of Gollancz’s SF Masterworks imprint.

They also publish a lot of Le Guin’s best SF as well as Joanna Russ’s The Female Man.

I collected all the Women’s Press SF I could find (many are out of print).

Those I have are:

Suzy McKee Charnas
The Vampire Tapestry
Walk to the End of the World/ Motherlines

Esme Dodderidge
The New Gulliver

Suzanne Haden Elgin
Mother Tongue
The Judas Rose

Margaret Elphinstone
The Incomer

Sally Miller Gearhart
The Wanderground

Tanith Lee
Women as Demons

Naomi Mitchison
Memoirs of a Spacewoman

Jane Palmer
The Watcher
Moving Moosevan

Marge Piercy
Woman on the Edge of Time

Doris Pisercia
Star Rider

Joanna Russ
The Female Man
Extra(Ordinary) People
The Adventures of Alyx
The Two of Them
Those About to Die...
The Hidden Side of the Moon

Josephine Saxton
Queen of the States
The Travails of Jane Saint
Jane Saint & The Backlash

Jody Scott
Passing for Human
I, Vampire

Joan Slonczewski
A Door Into Ocean

Anthology:

Jen Green & Sarah Lefanu (eds)
Despatches From the Frontiers of the Female Mind

Non-Fiction

Sarah Lefanu
In the Chinks of the World Machine

Russ’s Those About to Die... is currently available as part of the Penguin World’s series so widely available.

Daughters of a coral dawn. Extreme lesbian separatist sci fi. It’s a trilogy but the first one is the best.

Second the rec for Carhullan Army.

I used to love Marge Piercey, though I haven't read her in years. I preferred Vida to Woman on the Edge of Time.

I find it hard to identify specifically radical feminist novelists, because sometimes women just write very well about the female experience, and you assume they must be feminists, iyswim. So Carol Shields, Margaret Atwood, Alison Lurie, Elinor Lipman, Margaret Drabble, Anne Tyler, Lissa Evans (I love Old Baggage), Lisa Alther (another favourite from the 80s) and of course Doris Lessing (Lessing was always very grumpy about being called a feminist but it's hard to read her novels and come to the conclusion that she wasn't a feminist. The Martha Quest sequence in particular is brilliant).

Just realised I wasn't supposed to say Atwood or Lessing...

The Yellow wallpaper
The Power.: I read this when it can out 2 years ago before becoming still aware of the nuances of trans issues - have no recollection of how it deals with anything like that

The Wolf Border by Sarah Hall has a female main character who doesn’t play second fiddle to men.

I've just re read The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Brilliant book about how culturally sanctioned beauty standards effect one young girl. I'd recommend anything by Toni Morrison.

Also, Children of Time is interesting

The Andrei Tchaikovsky novel?

Lots of favourites on this thread. I'd also add May Sarton to the list - especially The Magnificent Spinster and The Education of Harriet Hatfield.

Woman on the Edge of Time is one of my favourites, and I think if you like that you'll also like Body of Glass, also by Marge Piercy. It marginally has the edge for me over Woman on the Edge of Time though I love both of them. Also Gone to Soldiers by the same author, a very different novel from the other two.

Good to see Native Tongue and The Judas Rose. There's a third one in the trilogy, Earthsong, but it's not as good.

Anyone mentioned Jeanette Winterson yet? There's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, obviously, but also The Gap of Time which is brilliant.

thankyoou for all these recommendations

I read the yellow wallpaper when I was pregnant (and depressed) with a load of other fiction focusing on motherhood stuff - rachel cusk, elena ferrante ect

Suzette Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue is currently available for pre-order at 99p on Kindle.

Of course, an honerable mention must go to Fay Weldon.