Women Who Write Are Dangerous

Bollmann (Women Who Read Are Dangerous) has put together a handsome compilation of images and short biographical essays on female writers in this coffee-table volume. He covers prose authors ranging in time from the medieval nun Hildegard of Bingen to such contemporary authors as Elena Ferrante and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and in status from literary figures such as George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, and Simone de Beauvoir to bestsellers such as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Agatha Christie. Perhaps the book’s most moving portion is devoted to writers who died in the 1940s at the hands of Nazis, including Anne Frank, Irène Némirovsky, and Sophie Scholl; indeed, readers may wish Bollmann had said more about them. While the prospect of a male author telling these women’s stories may give some pause, in a world in which women’s writing is still routinely underreviewed and underrated, a book celebrating this work will always be a welcome contribution. Both those who know these writers well and newcomers to their work should enjoy this excursion into the rich waters of literature written by women. [em](Sept.) [/em]