Secret Self Short Stories By Women

This comprehensive collection of short stories by women authors is both a must as an academic companion and as an everyday reader looking for the best of women's contemporary writing. Nor is it just for the staunch feminists. Lee chooses stories that do not alienate men from the enjoyment. The book contains wider issues than protests against men, motherhood and menstruation. Anita Desai's touching story 'Private Tuition by Mr. Bose' sympathetically shows the male experience of fatherhood and marriage. Muriel Spark's clever and intriguing story 'The First Year of my life'is, also, equally appealing to a wide audience.The colloection covers cannonised writers such as Margaret Atwood, Nobel Prize Winner Nadine Gordimer and the superb Angela Carter. Refreshingly, the collection encompasses more than just Anglo- American work including international authors such as Pauline Smith, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and Katherine Mansfield. The collection, however, does under represent a growing wave of Far Eastern women's writing.Overall, though, a good and accessable representation of contemporary women's short stories for both the female and male reader.