The World of Women Hunts Me

It is rare to find a man writing perceptively about §Eudora Welty s links with feminism:she herself did §not want to be too directly associated with any §such movement ,but many female critics have §appropriated her as an early feminist, and her §novels are widely read and studied as if they were §part of a feminist agenda rather than, as Dr Habeeb, §shows us, as part of an ongoing and rich tradition §of writing which happens to be by women. Where other §male critics have looked at Welty s southern-ness, §her spiritual journeys, her microcosms, Dr Habeeb §tackles more complex issues and tropes Welty s §metaphors, her use of masculine discourse,her §playing with dreams and such-like magic. He places §her rightly in a southern tradition, but he daringly §takes that tradition back to writers from far §outside the American south.§This is a major contribution to studies of Eudora §Welty s fiction, but more than that it also claims a §place in writing about feminism and women s fiction §which transcends gender studies and roles, as Welty §herself would surely have wished.§§John McRae,Special Professor of Language in §Literature,University of Nottingham,England. It is rare to find a man writing perceptively about §Eudora Welty s links with feminism:she herself did §not want to be too directly associated with any §such movement ,but many female critics have §appropriated her as an early feminist, and her §novels are widely read and studied as if they were §part of a feminist agenda rather than, as Dr Habeeb, §shows us, as part of an ongoing and rich tradition §of writing which happens to be by women. Where other §male critics have looked at Welty s southern-ness, §her spiritual journeys, her microcosms, Dr Habeeb §tackles more complex issues and tropes Welty s §metaphors, her use of masculine discourse,her §playing with dreams and such-like magic. He places §her rightly in a southern tradition, but he daringly §takes that tradition back to writers from far §outside the American south.§This is a major contribution to studies of Eudora §Welty s fiction, but more than that it also claims a §place in writing about feminism and women s fiction §which transcends gender studies and roles, as Welty §herself would surely have wished.§John McRae,Special Professor of Language in §Literature,University of Nottingham,England.