A Guest Post by Anna: A Literary Canon of Women Writers, Part Fifteen: The Twenty-First Century

Echidne's note: Earlier parts of this series can be found here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 ,Part 5, Part 6, Part 7,Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12,Part 13 and Part 14


Indira Goswami (14 November 1942 – 29 November 2011), known by her pen name Mamoni Raisom Goswami and popularly as Mamoni Baideo, was an Assamese editor, poet, professor, scholar and writer. She was the winner of the Jnanpith Award (2001) and Principal Prince Claus Laureate (2008).

A celebrated writer of contemporary Indian literature, her works include include Pages Stained With Blood (2001, a novel that depicts the Sikh massacre in Delhi in the aftermath of the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in June 1984) , The Moth Eaten Howdah of the Tusker (2004, a novel about the beginning of independence for India), and The Man from Chinnamasta (2005, a novel opposing animal sacrifice.)

These are widely available in English.

Zadie Smith (born on 25 October 1975) is a British novelist. To date she has written three novels. In 2003, she was included on Granta's list of 20 best young authors.

Her most famous novel is White Teeth (2000), which focuses on the later lives of two wartime friends - the Bangladeshi Samad Iqbal and the Englishman Archie Jones - and their families in London. The book won multiple honors, including the 2000 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, the 2000 Whitbread Book Award in category best first novel, the Guardian First Book Award, the Commonwealth Writers First Book Prize, and the Betty Trask Award. Time magazine included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. It is widely available in English.

Téa Obreht (born Tea Bajraktarević on September 30, 1985) is an American novelist of Bosniak/Slovene descent, born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, now Serbia.

Her debut novel, The Tiger's Wife (2011), won the 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction, making her the youngest novelist ever to win the prize. The novel features a young doctor's relationship with her grandfather and the stories he tells her. These stories concern a "deathless man" who meets him several times in different places and never grows old, and a deaf-mute girl from his childhood village who befriends a tiger that escaped from a zoo. This novel is widely available in English.

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So that concludes my literary canon of women writers. However, there are undoubtedly many worthy women I didn't have the time or knowledge to cover. Please feel free to add your suggestions in the comments. I hope you have enjoyed this series.