cover image Women Writers Talk: Interviews with 10 Women Writers

Women Writers Talk: Interviews with 10 Women Writers

Olga Kenton. Carroll & Graf Publishers, $18.95 (214pp) ISBN 978-0-88184-522-8

Ten women from the U.K. here discuss their writing and its relationship to feminist issues with University College (London) literary critic and teacher Kenyon. Of diverse voice and point of view, the 10--Anita Brookner, Margaret Drabble, Iris Murdoch, Michele Roberts and Fay Weldon among them--reflect on their careers. Kenyon, familiar with each woman's oeuvre, unobtrusively encourages her subjects to illuminate their particular interests: Eva Figes comments sharply on patriarchal literary criticism; self-assured yet anguished, Nadine Gordimer reflects on the writer and politics; discussing crime stories, P. D. James remarks, ``We are all potential murderers.'' Occasional references to things British remind readers that these are Commonwealth writers, at the same time raising hope for publication of a similar collection of conversations with American women writers. (Jan.)