Portrait of Erica Jong
Reading List
Erica Jong
Novelist and Poet
Erica Jong is an American novelist, poet and essayist whose first novel, Fear of Flying (1973), became one of the defining books of second-wave feminism and has sold many millions of copies worldwide.
She began as a poet, publishing Fruits & Vegetables (1971) and Half-Lives (1973), and has written more than twenty books across fiction, verse and memoir. They include the picaresque novel Fanny: Being the True History of the Adventures of Fanny Hackabout-Jones (1980), the historical novel Serenissima (1987), the memoir Fear of Fifty (1994) and a study of Henry Miller, The Devil at Large (1993).
The Second Sex
by Simone de Beauvoir
“The French literary world is incredibly sexist and here was one of their darlings pointing out how much they discriminate. It’s just like Tahrir Square in Egypt – freedom is for everyone, but not for women. Simone de Beauvoir pointed that out in a million ways. It is a seminal text for feminists to read, even for the sake of arguing with it. She deals with the sexism that still exists in the literary world.” — via Interview, August 2012
Frankenstein
by Mary Shelley · 2003 · Fiction
“I think we have that in Frankenstein – buried, of course, under all the Gothic stuff. If we think of Frankenstein in terms of reanimating the dead – finding a scientific, a magical way to bring back the dead – we can understand it in terms of Mary Shelley’s life. It reminds us, as women, of how new it is to be able to count on our children surviving.” — via Interview, August 2012
The Golden Notebook
by Doris Lessing
“The thing that I thought so fabulous about Doris Lessing was that she created a heroine who was intellectual and sexual. Always in the past, the sexy heroines of men’s books have been idiots, but she asserted through her character of Anna that women were brains and bodies and that their brains and bodies interacted. I think that was so revolutionary.” — via Interview, August 2012
The Female Eunuch
by Germaine Greer
“When I read Germaine Greer back in 1971, I was just delighted, because here, suddenly, was somebody saying all the things we felt in our bones but didn’t dare say. And she said it with humour and outrageousness and I loved that. I think Germaine has written many important books. One of the ones that has been most neglected is The Obstacle Race, about the fortunes of women painters. I adore that book.” — via Interview, August 2012
Of Woman Born
Motherhood as Experience and Institution
by Adrienne Rich
“Adrienne Rich had three sons back in the 1950s and early 60s, and she describes her transformation from the young poet who won the Yale Younger Poets prize and launched on a career, was recognised by many important poets, into the mother of three boys, whom she had in rapid succession.” — via Interview, August 2012
