US trade magazine Publishers Weekly has come under fire for failing to include a single woman in its list of the top 10 titles of 2009.
From Richard Holmes's history of science in the Romantic generation, The Age of Wonder, to Blake Bailey's Cheever: A Life, Geoff Dyer's novel Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, Daniyal Mueenuddin's short story collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders and David Small's graphic novel memoir Stitches, Publishers Weekly's all-male line-up has drawn the ire of a group of female writers.
"The absence made me nearly speechless." said poet and creative writing professor Cate Marvin, co-founder of new US literary organisation Women in Letters and Literary Arts (WILLA). WILLA has gathered more than 5,500 members since it launched in August with the aim of bringing "increased attention to women's literary accomplishments and [questioning] the American literary establishment's historical slow-footedness in recognising and rewarding women writers' achievements".
The group pointed to new books published this year by Lorrie Moore, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Rita Dove, Heather McHugh and Alicia Ostriker. "It continues to surprise me that literary editors are so comfortable with their bias toward male writing, despite the great and obvious contributions that women authors make to our contemporary literary culture," said Marvin.
Announcing the list, novelist and journalist Louisa Ermelino said that PW "wanted [it] to reflect what we thought were the top 10 books of the year with no other consideration". "We ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz. We gave fair chance to the 'big' books of the year, but made them stand on their own two feet," she said, adding that "it disturbed us when we were done that our list was all male".
Poet Erin Belieu, WILLA's other co-founder and director of the creative writing programme at Florida State University, said that "when PW's editors tell us they're not worried about 'political correctness', that's code for 'your concerns as a feminist aren't legitimate'". "They know they're being blatantly sexist, but it looks like they feel good about that," said Belieu. "I, on the other hand, have heard from a whole lot of people - writers and readers - who don't feel good about it at all."
WILLA has now launched a wiki list of "great books published by women in 2009", which already includes AS Byatt's The Children's Book, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's The Thing Around Your Neck and Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry.
Publishers Weekly's top 10 books of 2009
The Age of Wonder by Richard Holmes
Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon
Big Machine by Victor LaValle
Cheever by Blake Bailey
A Fiery Peace in a Cold War by Neil Sheehan
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer
Lost City of Z by David Grann
Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew B. Crawford
Stitches by David Small