What does a woman need to be a writer? “Money and a room of her own,” Virginia Woolf answered in her 1929 essay “A Room of One’s Own”. Almost a century later, this basic thesis holds true. The 24 authors who contribute to Schreibtisch mit Aussicht (“A Desk with a View”), a collection of essays by women writers, all point to the value of financial and, above all, creative independence in their work. In this book, Zeitmagazin editor Ilka Piepgras invites some of the most important voices in contemporary literature to reflect on their relationship to writing. Names like Deborah Levy, Zadie Smith, Sheila Heti and Antonia Baum divulge how their novels get written, and consider how becoming wives and mothers has influenced their writing process. In doing so, the women contrast clichéd images of the lone, male literary genius with the reality of everyday life. Sometimes soberly, sometimes poetically, these novelists reveal writing for what it really is: an act of strength, a feeling of happiness and a product of hard work. (Text: Laura Storfner / Photos: Bui Luu Quynh Nguyen)
Schreibtisch mit Aussicht: Schriftstellerinnen über ihr Schreiben, edited by Ilka Piepgras (2020, Kein & Aber, in German)
@keinundaberverlag
