Transgressive Fiction is the odd kid in the neighborhood. That kid who is being called names and ignored and feeling lonely. But that kid is more of a boy than a girl. So, the odd little girl in me felt a need to write about women writers in the genre of Transgressive Fiction as I feel there are not mentioned much. To give all of a voice as any good feminist girl would do, I created a list of women writers whose books can be categorized under Transgressive Fiction for considering taboo themes along with the top published book of each writer. In this post, I will list the names along with their most celebrated books and in future posts, I will discuss each one of them more in detail. As the list is longer than I assumed, I will separate it into 2 or 3 parts. I chose and listed these inspiring women randomly without putting any on top of the list as each is unique in its own sense. Also, I chose these writers because they transgressed their social norms and taboos of their time. Today we will talk about Sylvia Plath, Donna Tartt, Alissa Nutting, Kathy Acker, and Anaïs Nin.
Sylvia Plath
(October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963)
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer.
She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other
Poems and Ariel, as well as The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death. (source)
Some in the feminist movement saw Plath as a "symbol of blighted female genius" (source) who was speaking for their experience. Unfortunately, suffering from depression, she died by suicide in 1963.
“Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing.”
― sylvia plath
Donna Tartt
(born December 23, 1963)
Donna Louise Tartt is an American author with
amazing novels such as The Little Friend, and The Goldfinch. Tartt won the WH Smith Literary Award for The Little Friend in 2003 and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Goldfinch in 2014 She was included in Time magazine's 2014 "100 Most Influential People" list.
“The first duty of the novelist is to entertain. It is a moral duty. People who read your books are sick, sad, traveling, in the hospital waiting room while someone is dying. Books are written by the alone for the alone.”
― Donna Tartt
Alissa Nutting
Alissa Nutting is an American author and creative writing professor.
Nutting is the author of the short story collection Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls and the novel, Tampa. Tampa is a novel that combines erotica, satire, and social criticism and was banned in many bookstores for being too explicit.
“That erasure was the gift I gave myself.”
― Alissa Nutting
Kathy Acker
(April 18, 1947 – November 30, 1997)
Kathy Acker was an American experimental novelist, playwright, essayist, and
the postmodernist writer is known for her idiosyncratic and transgressive writing that dealt with themes such as childhood trauma, sexuality, and rebellion. Her most famous books are Blood and Guts in High School and Pussy, King of the Pirates.
“If you ask me what I want, I'll tell you. I want everything.”
― Kathy Acker
Anaïs Nin
(February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977)
Anaïs Nin was a French-Cuban-American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Nin wrote journals prolifically from age eleven until her death.
Her journals, many of which were published during her lifetime, detail her private thoughts and personal relationships. Her journals also describe her marriages to Hugh Parker Guiler and Rupert Pole, in addition to her numerous affairs, including those with psychoanalyst Otto Rank and writer Henry Miller, both of whom profoundly influenced Nin and her writing. In addition to her journals, Nin wrote several novels, critical studies, essays, short stories, and volumes of erotica including the collections of erotica Delta of Venus and Little Birds.
“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
― Anaïs Nin