Cath Corri
What novel/novelist has inspired or touched your life most and why? For me it is Toni Morrison’s BELOVED ………… unique in its style and works with history, language and motherhood in a fantastical but completely new way. Opened up Afro-American women’s writing to me and deconstructs the female literary canon. In fact, this novel propelled me into the theoretical undertones of writing from a ‘position’ – formed part of my life from 1992 and ongoing!!!!!!!!!!! changed my understanding of culture, womanhood and art/aesthetics. x

Jen Corri

Is hard to pick one novel – lots have shaped me. But for you… The grapes of wrath. Poverty/class, family/community, politics, loss, discriminination, inhumanity to man, value of human life, strength of human spirit! Love symbolism/style but more so the themes they show. The first peek to a privileged girl with a middle class upbringing that justice is not always found – Salvation doesn’t always come, ‘happily ever after’ isn’t dependent on goodness or hardwork. People are absorbed with NIMBYlism, selfishness, missing that fundamental human gift of ‘conscience’. These were all revelations at the time – and still are! Makes me appreciate mine all the more. And reiterated what I already knew – that the love of a caring family won’t fail you, that the human spirit can and does endure way beyond. ·

Jen Corri
Do you mean you weren’t a feminist before Beloved – or that you only wrote as a feminist after Beloved?? x
(over a year ago) ·

Cath Corri
I became more ‘conscious’ after reading Beloved – it is a novel about infanticide, slavery – history and re-making a language to speak of the horror of slavery and all the attached elements of such a bereavement . I was studying feminist theory at the time and thought about how women are different – we were mainly taught white middle-class stuff – our only glimpse of ‘difference’ was a thirty minute viewing of the Supremes – wearing western wigs (that was to teach us how they had to fit in to Western culture. From that viewing i intensely studied Afro-American women’s writing – and that’s when Toni Morrison’s work FOUND ME!!!!!!!!!!! Afro-American women talk os sisterhood in a different way and they name themselves as ‘Womanist’ rather than ‘feminist – which i like (inclusive of men not exclusive of them) ….. wider cultural implications are considered.

Jen Corri
She’s a woman
Phenominally
Phenominal Woman
That’s Ms Toni

Am inspired enough now – Gonna use the reach of my arms around Paradise. Hope the ratio of non-oppressive, integral men is better thou? I like ‘womanist’ but took Paul B/D/P? as more of a surprise than Morrison’s standard of men.