Annemarie Schwarzenbach was a Swiss writer, journalist, photographer and traveler who produced more than 300 articles and 5,000 photographs from her journeys across Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Africa. Schwarzenbach was born in 1908 in Horgen near Zurich, Switzerland to one of the richest families in Switzerland at the time. From an …
Emily Dickinson was a prolific American poet who has been posthumously celebrated for her unusual use of form and syntax. Dickinson was born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her father wanted all of his children to be well-educated and Dickinson attended primary school in Amherst before continuing on to Amherst Academy which had recently opened …
Adrienne Rich was an American poet, essayist and feminist called “one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century.” She is credited with bringing “the oppression of women and lesbians to the forefront of poetic discourse.” Rich was born in 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father, Arnold …
Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, feminist and poet best known for her novel Little Women. Alcott was born in 1812 in Germantown, Pennsylvania. She grew up in Boston and Concord, Massachusetts, and from a young age she would write stories which she and her sisters would act out for friends. Her father briefly …
Camilla Collett was a feminist writer from Norway. She wrote the first Norwegian novel dealing critically with the position of women and is known as the “first Norwegian feminist.” Collett was born in 1813 in Kristiansand, Norway to Nicolai Wergeland, a noted theologian, politician, and composer in his time, and Alette née Thaulow. At the …
Eugénie Niboyet was a French author, journalist and early feminist. She is best known for founding La Voix des Femmes (The Women’s Voice), the first feminist daily newspaper in France. Niboyet was born in 1797 in Montpellier, France and raised in a Protestant household. During the Bourbon Restoration following the fall of Napoleon in 1814, …
Gloria Evangelina Anzaldúa was a self described Chicana/Tejana/lesbian/dyke/feminist/writer/poet/cultural theorist. She is best known for her book, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza about growing up on the U.S./Mexican border. Anzaldúa was born in 1942 in Rio Grande Valley, Texas. At a young age, she developed an extremely rare hormonal imbalance, and was menstruating from the age …
Begum Rokeya was a leading Muslim feminist writer and social worker in undivided Bengal during the early 20th century. She fought for gender equality and established the first school for Muslim girls, which still exists today. Rokeya was born in 1880 in Bangladesh during British colonial rule. Her family were orthodox Muslims, and so women …
Raichō Hiratsuka was a writer, journalist, political activist, anarchist and pioneering Japanese feminist who founded Seitō (Bluestocking) magazine. Hiratsuka was born in 1886 in Tokyo. She attended Japan Women’s University where she became interested in European philosophy, Zen buddhism and the Swedish feminist writer Ellen Key. After graduating, she continued her education at the Narumi …
Zelda Fitzgerald was an American novelist and socialite known as “the first American Flapper”. She was a huge influence on the work of her husband, author F. Scott Fitzgerald, who plagiarised her letters and diary to use in his own work and based many of his literary characters on her and her personal experiences. Fitzgerald …