Earlier this year, when that same newspaper offered up another list – 100 Novels Everyone Should Read – women authors accounted for only three of the top 10 books, and a dismal 19 of the full 100. Meanwhile, The Observer’s chief literary maven, Robert McCrum, spent two years drawing up his ultimate list of 100 best novels in English. When he revealed his all-time top 10 in August, he named four novels by women. In all, however, works by female authors accounted for only one in five of his chosen titles
reenex.
BBC Culture’s poll draws exclusively on the views of non-British critics
So what accounts for the findings of BBC Culture’s poll? For starters
reenex, it focuses strictly on British rather than international or English-language literature. Another difference is that it doesn’t limit itself to a particular period of time, but takes in everything from Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719 and widely held to be the first English-language novel, to works published this decade. Yet these differences fail to explain why our poll would yield more works by women – far from it. After all, America has a glittering tradition of great women authors, and it’s been
reneexsignificantly easier for a woman to carve out a literary career since 1945 – the Times list’s starting point – than at any time before.
No, the key distinction between BBC Culture’s poll and those others is that it draws exclusively on the views of non-British critics. Divided more or less equally in terms of their gender, its critics hail from countries including the United States, Canada, Australia, Denmark and India.
reenexPR
