Virginia's Sisters

Gabi Reigh's translations and fiction have been published in Modern Poetry in Translation, World Literature Today and The Fortnightly Review. She has won the Stephen Spender prize for poetry in translation and was shortlisted for the Tom-Gallon Society of Authors short story award. She is currently engaged in a translation project called Interbellum Series focusing on works from the Romanian interwar period, including the poetry of Lucian Blaga. Gabi was awarded the English Pen Translates Award n 2019 for her translation of Mihail Sebastian's The Town with Acacia Trees.Virginia Woolf is a celebrated English writer considered the 'Mother' of Modernism because of her use of stream of consciousness within her work. She first published 'The Voyage out' in 1915 and went on to publish several novels, as well as essays and short stories including 'Mrs Dalloway', 'Orlando' and 'A Room of One's Own.' Charlotte Perkins Gilman was an American humanist, novelist, writer, lecturer, advocate for social reform, and eugenicist. She was a utopian feminist and served as a role model for future generations of feminists because of her unorthodox concepts and lifestyle. She has been inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Her best remembered work today is her semi-autobiographical short story "The Yellow Wallpaper", which she wrote after a severe bout of postpartum psychosis. Edith Wharton ( born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 - August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and interior designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in Literature, for her novel The Age of Innocence. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. Among her other well-known works are The House of Mirth and the novella Ethan Frome. Zelda Fitzgerald (nee Sayre; July 24, 1900 - March 10, 1948) was an American novelist, painter, and socialite.Born in Montgomery, Alabama, she was noted for her beauty and high spirits, and was dubbed by her husband F. Scott Fitzgerald as "the first American flapper". She and Scott became emblems of the Jazz Age, for which they are still celebrated. The immediate success of Scott's first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), brought them into contact with high society, but their marriage was plagued by wild drinking, infidelity and bitter recriminations. Ernest Hemingway, whom Fitzgerald disliked, blamed her for her husband's declining literary output. Zelda suffered from a mental health crisis and was increasingly confined to specialist clinics. Different accounts suggest that she suffered from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or alternatively that she was victim of gaslighting by her husband. The couple were living apart when Scott died suddenly in 1940. Zelda Fitzgerald died over seven years later in a fire at the hospital in Asheville, North Carolina, in which she was a patient.A 1970 biography by Nancy Milford was on the short list of contenders for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1992, Fitzgerald was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame.Anna Andreyevna Gorenko (23 June [O.S. 11 June] 1889 - 5 March 1966), better known by the pen name Anna Akhmatova, was one of the most significant Russian poets of 20th century. She was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in 1965 and received second-most (three) nominations for the award the following year.Akhmatova's work ranges from short lyric poems to intricately structured cycles, such as Requiem (1935-40), her tragic masterpiece about the Stalinist terror. Her style, characterised by its economy and emotional restraint, was strikingly original and distinctive to her contemporaries. The strong and clear leading female voice struck a new chord in Russian poetry. Her writing can be said to fall into two periods - the early work (1912-25) and her later work (from around 1936 until her death), divided by a decade of reduced literary output. Her work was condemned and censored by Stalinist authorities, and she is notable for choosing not to emigrate and remaining in the Soviet Union, acting as witness to the events around her. Her perennial themes include meditations on time and memory, and the difficulties of living and writing in the shadow of Stalinism.Primary sources of information about Akhmatova's life are relatively scant, as war, revolution and the Soviet regime caused much of the written record to be destroyed. For long periods she was in official disfavour and many of those who were close to her died in the aftermath of the revolution. Akhmatova's first husband, Nikolay Gumilyov, was executed by the Soviet secret police, and her son Lev Gumilyov and her common-law husband Nikolay Punin spent many years in the Gulag, where Punin died.

"This important anthology reclaims the voices of female writers from around the world, illustrating the existence of a powerful female literary tradition outside the male literary patrimony." - Professor Stiliana Milkova, author of Elena Ferrante as World Literature; "This book is a collection of short stories and poems written by female writers in the early 1900’s. Some are translated to English from the native language. It’s a nice book because you can read one short story and come back later to a different story. I’ve not read many of these authors before so it was interesting to hear their stories. I also loved the drawings and quotes from famous women throughout history. It reminds me how far women have come in the last 100+ years and how much more can change in the next 100 years. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in early 1900’s stories about women and the struggles they faced." -Sheri Steuben, reviewer Netgalley; "Virginia's Sisters is a fantastic anthology which brings to light female voices from the early 1900s who have not been celebrated as much in the literary canon, either because they were overshadowed by male contemporaries or because their work was not translated into English at the time of publishing. While well known names like Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton and Katherine Mansfield figure in this collection of poetry and short stories, their work is illuminated and complemented by voices from Eastern Europe and Asia. All of these stories sing with talent but also shed light upon the female experience in the early 20th century. Every woman in these stories is tackling how they are defined by their relationships to men, motherhood and marriage. But these writers also weave in the intricacies of human existence too - these are not two-dimensional narratives focusing just on the 'plight' of womanhood. Within these tales we learn about the loves, hungers and secrets these women keep. Independence, success, transgressing boundaries and queer relationships are all celebrated in these stories. Thus, rather than being an anthology dictated by a white male professor in a stuffy office, this anthology breathes with refreshing perspectives as it exists to ensure quieter voices from literature of the past are finally being heard." -Kristiana Reed, reviewer Netgalley

• Introduction by Gabi ReighList of authors and works included:A Woman by Fani Popova-Mutafova (translated by Petya Pavlova)Thoughts by Myra Viola WildsThe Little Governess by Katherine MansfieldVilla Myosotis by Sorana Gurian (translated by Gabi Reigh)The Mark on the Wall by Virginia WoolfMiss Ogilvy Finds Herself [extract] by Radclyffe HallI sit and sew by Alice Dunbar NelsonFirst Steps [extract] by Dorka Talmon (translated by Mira Glover)Coming Home by Maria Messina (translated by Juliette Neil)Vegetal Reverie by Magda Isanos (translated by Gabi Reigh)The Iceberg by Zelda FitzgeraldThe Russian Princess by Carmen de Burgos (translated by Slava Faybysh)Bring to Me All... by Marina Tsvetaeva (translated by Nina Kossman)Autres Temps by Edith WhartonUnheard by Yente Serdatsky (translated by Dalia Wolfson)Fog by Gabriela Mistral (translated by Stuart Cooke)Natalia [extract] by Fausta Cialente (translated by Laura Shanahan)What makes this century worse? by Anna Akhmatova (translated by Olga Livshin)Broken by Nataliya Kobrynska (translated by Hanna Leliv & Slava Faybysh)Sunset by Antonia Pozzi (translated by Sonia di Placido)Once Upon A Time by Ling Shuhua (translated by Leilei Chen)Their Religions and our Marriages: Herland [extract] by Charlotte Perkins GilmanGoodbye Lebanon by May Ziadeh (translated by Rose DeMaris)