A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again

A poignant blend of memoir, criticism, and biography about what it means to be a woman and to strive to be free

Even a change the size of a grain of sand can be enough. You can speak your mind at dinner like Mary, start drinking wine and crying like Simone, or wake up earlier and start writing like Lena, a character in Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels. You can try an open marriage, decide to have a child with a lover, or start lying to get what you want. It’s not about self-improvement, it’s about freedom. And changing is one way to become free. You can become more or less of a feminist, write more, less, or stop altogether, have the courage to act on your own beliefs, or condemn society from solitude.

After a few years of marriage, Joanna Biggs realized that she wanted a different life. And despite her personal experiences, societal pressures, and lack of ideas about what and how to do next, she got divorced. In search of answers to these questions, Joanna turned to her favorite writers—Simon de Beauvoir, Sylvia Plath, Mary Shelley, Virginia Woolf, and others—and found what she was looking for in the pages of their lives and works.

"A Life of Her Own" combines memoir and literary criticism, examines the figures of outstanding women writers, removes them from their pedestals, and examines them from a new, unexpected angle. What gave women the strength to write? What can we learn from them? Is home life a trap for women? Are there "female" and "male" roles in marriage? And why is it so important for women to read women?

Joanna Biggs tries to find bold and sometimes controversial answers to the questions of how women have fought for their own intellectual freedom and the right to vote for centuries.