Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Ann Quin
-
Standard Name: Quin, Ann
Birth Name: Ann Marie Quin
AQ
was one of the less-known English experimental writers of the 1960s. She has been likened to Graham Greene
, Nathalie Sarraute
, Samuel Beckett
, Robert Creeley
, Virginia Woolf
, and Anna Kavan
, among others. Such a spectrum of comparisons indicates both her originality and the difficulty she poses to critics who would place her neatly in standard categories. Over her short career, she produced four novels that enjoy a small but diligent following. Though each of these displays increasing formal innovation, certain themes persist through all of them, including searching and stalking, triangular relationships, and the fragility of identity.
Evenson, Brian, and Ann Quin. “Introduction”. Three, Dalkey Archive, 2001, p. vii - xiii.
vii
Gordon, Giles, editor. Beyond the Words. Hutchinson, 1975.
MS
began her career as a novelist in illness and under financial stress. In 1954, Macmillan
, who were looking for promising new writers, invited her to write a novel. Although ill and unable to...
Occupation
Rebecca West
The prize went to P. H. Newby
's Something to Answer For, which according to Kermode years later was a compromise decision. Dame Rebecca didn't dislike it as much as nearly all the others...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Nell Dunn
Her interviewees are young women (the oldest is Edna O'Brien
at thirty-two), many with small children, many trying to make it as writers or artists (two of the most trenchant interviews were given by O'Brien...
Timeline
1965: Giles Gordon did a series of interviews for...
Women writers item
1965
Giles Gordon
did a series of interviews for The Scotsman with female authors: a species of writer that at the time wasn't particularly recognised, although it certainly had been in the previous century.
Gordon, Giles. “Reading Ann Quin’s Berg”. Context: A Forum for Literary Arts and Culture, 2001.
By early November 1973: Experimental novelist B. S. Johnson prefaced...
Writing climate item
By early November 1973
Experimental novelist B. S. Johnson
prefaced his short-story volume Aren't You Rather Young To Be Writing Your Memoirs? with a polemical critique listing only sixteen serious contemporary British writers.
Gordon, Giles. “Reading Ann Quin’s Berg”. Context: A Forum for Literary Arts and Culture, 2001.