Women Among Monuments

<strong>A lyrical meditation on the enduring obstacles women artists and writers face in a world still unaccustomed to recognizing female genius.</strong><br/><br/>Voted the “Next Picasso” in her rural high school’s yearbook, South-African Canadian author Kasia Van Schaik considers what it means for a young woman to take up a mantle usually reserved for white heterosexual male genius. Drawing on a diverse web of literary and cultural sources and artistic icons, from Michelangelo to Ana Mendieta, Gauguin to Gertrude Stein, and Alice Walker to Alice Munro, <em>Women Among Monuments</em> asks what, beyond a room of one’s own, are the necessary conditions for female genius? Where does the inner flint of artistic permission come from? What is the oxygen that keeps it burning?<br/><br/> Through her incisive biographies of female solitude, constraint, and perseverance, Kasia Van Schaik blazes a path for more inclusive artmaking practices, communities, and monuments.