Six Literary Women Who Should Be Your Heroes

1. Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Fitzgerald, the beautiful wife and word mistress of F. Scott Fitzgerald was an icon in her own right. Together they were considered the untamed Prince and Princess of their generation. However, beneath the superficiality and danger of this iconic charade, which defined a new era of liberation, was a toxic relationship that, inevitably, shaped Zelda into the original manic pixie dream girl: a woman who exists merely to promote male self-discovery and success. The darling of early 1900’s Alabama, Zelda was notorious for her outrageous and nomadic lifestyle, electric wit and charm. Scott took inspiration and, at times, knowingly plagiarised Zelda’s many journals whilst simultaneously suppressing her own publishing efforts; stealing her drafts and sending them onto publishers under his own name. Additionally, his character of Gloria in ‘The Beautiful and The Damned’ is almost identical to Zelda in demeanor and antics. Perhaps he misunderstood the concept of a muse to mean absolute, biographical replication? Who can tell? Beyond the pages, genius and writing that Scott claimed as his own, Zelda was a trained ballerina, painted biblically infused scenes from Alice and Wonderland, published a critically acclaimed novel and has a video game named after her. In one letter to Scott she writes, “excuse me for being so intellectual. I know you would prefer something nice and feminine and affectionate”. Please Zelda, will you be my literary, surrogate mother?

2. Collette

“Behind every great man is an even greater woman.”

Whoever first uttered this idiom must have done so in reference to the great and scandalous French writer and actress Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette. Entering into a strained and exploitative marriage at the young age of 20, her husband quickly discovered her raw talent for writing, locking away his young wife and forcing her to write countless chapters of a book series he would inevitably claim to be his own. Under her husband’s ‘guidance’, Colette created one of the most addictive female characters of the century, Claudine, whose adventures mimic many of Colette’s from her early years. The entirety of Europe was smitten. After rioting against her husband’s controlling demeanour, Colette began a six-year affair with the gender-defying aristocrat, Missy. Colette then became a performer for the Moulin Rogue and went on to champion literature that was eons ahead of her time, specialising in the creation of engaging female heroines who revolted against chaste innocence in favour of self-expression and freedom.

3. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

If you require any introduction to Adichie, you need only read her short story “The Headstrong Historian” to appreciate her unique ability to deliver a highly personal narrative on the effects of colonialism, familial obligation and remaining true to your cultural roots and ancestry in an increasingly homogenised society. Her book-length essay “We Should All Be Feminists” captures the feminine spirit and anger introduced by this collection just as eloquently and sets an important precedent for the kind of equality in the 21st century. The Nigerian writer has produced some of the most viewed TedTalks in the initiative’s history, including ‘The Danger of A Single Story’. Fueled by a magnificent rage about gender injustice and the suppression of a ‘different’ kind of female narrative - particularly the ‘non-white’ breed - her provocative storytelling and literary talent has brought widespread attention and popularity to African literature. “Beware of feminism lite” she warns in one novel, “and do not forget to be angry.”

4. Sylvia Plath

When we think of Sylvia Plath, knowledge of her suicide often precedes an appreciation for her poetry and writing. She is too often regarded as a ‘cliched’ inspiration for many female poets and writers. Something silly and shallow who has become romanticised by the “college girl mentality” as Woody Allen so gingerly informed us in his movie ‘Annie Hall’. But do not bypass her unmistakable literary prowess - the kind which radiates throughout her astounding verse, stanza and line - because of the prominence of her death. In “Mad Girl’s Love Song” she reveals an obsessive captivation with a lover she partially created in her mind. Plath depicts their romance as a fluctuation between death and life, fantasy and reality:

“The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, And arbitrary blackness gallops in: I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead… I lift my lids and all is born again.”

She was “the girl things happen to” and before her death she wrote compulsively, producing some of the most brilliant and profound poems to her name which have, posthumously, reconfigured her legacy. Do not regard Plath merely in the light of her suicide. Doing so would be a literary tragedy.

5. Elena Ferrante

In 2011, a strange illness or delirium struck the literary inclined masses known only as ‘Ferrante fever’. Every street-corner you turned there would be another person, captivated by the phenomenal story of Lila and Lenu/ Elena. ‘My Brilliant Friend’, her breakthrough novel, provides a delicate and highly personal portrait of the deeply impassioned and intimate female friendship. The relationship between Lila, a fiery, feral and sensational child, and Lenu, a quiet, cherubic girl who is captivated by the “confusing attraction” of her “dangerous” but fierce friend not only reveals the beauty and brutality of female intimacy but the ways in which this closeness can oscillate between the terrain of magical and perilous in an instant. Alongside this magnetic depiction of the energy that consumes these relationships, the story invites a discussion into subjects of violence, poverty, fancy shoes, guilt and class-jumping against a backdrop of childhood adventure and discovery. To heighten the irresistibility of this book series, the name Elena Ferrante is actually a pseudonym. The true author has never revealed herself despite the success of her writing.

6. Fanny Fern

What a LADY! This woman was a fantastic storyteller who could c o m m a n d a brilliant blend of humour, wisdom, intuition and unique captivating narrative voice into her wildly popular stories and New York Ledger column (the most popular of its time). She was also a phenomenal activist for the rights of groups and people who needed a strong (wo)man on their side. Women, children, and criminals alike found an ally in this incredible New Yorker who was demanding prison reform and labour rights for children long before the issues entered the public radar. Historically, you can often judge the talent of a woman by the degree of upset, anger and excitement she aroused in the men of her era. According to this rule, Fern must have been the greatest woman of her time. After upsetting Charles Dickens at a New York Press Club dinner in his honour, after which he prevented the entrance of women, she retaliated by creating her own female-only writer’s club, ‘Sorosis’. From wearing male clothes in protest of ‘cross-dressing’ laws and authoring the renowned essay “Male Criticism on Ladies’ Books” which addresses the dismal amount of female writers within the literary community at the time, she was a columnist and author who truly exemplifies the quick-wit and sly joy of satire writing.