Frauen Literatur

Banal, kitschy, trivial - if we continue to devalue female writers, we miss out on the best! Should the gender of the author play a role in our reading choices? Most would likely say no. Yet, literary works by women are published, discussed, and awarded less frequently. This must come to an end. Nicole Seifert provides the book for this debate - smart, well-founded, and inspiring. Banal, kitschy, trivial - three adjectives that have been used to devalue the literary contributions of women for centuries. While male authors fill thousands of pages with descriptions of everyday life and are celebrated for it, female writers who do the same are accused of writing mere mood prose. Nicole Seifert aims to highlight the misogynistic structures within the literary world. Many books written by women go unheard because newspaper, radio, and television editorial teams, and even publishers, make a selective pre-choice. From German classes to German studies, the proportion of female authors remains negligible, teaching us from the start that what is considered literarily valuable comes from men. After reading exclusively literature by women - classics as well as contemporary works, well-known as well as lesser-known - for three years, it is clear: the much-touted quality is not the issue. On the contrary: we miss out on the best if we do not finally introduce a female quota in our bookshelves.