Description
Writing the Survivor:
The Rape Novel in Late Twentieth-Century American Fiction identifies a new genre of American fiction, the rape
novel, that recenters narratives of sexual violence on the survivors of
violence and abuse, rather than the perpetrators. The rape novel arose during
the women’s liberation movement as women writers collectively challenged the
traditional erasure of female subjectivity and agency found in earlier representations
of sexual violence in American fiction. The rape novel not only foregrounds survivors
and their stories in a textual centering that affirms their dignity and
self-worth, but also develops new narratological strategies for portraying
violent, disturbing subject matter. In bringing together many key women’s texts
of the last decades of the 20th century, the rape novel demonstrates the
centrality of sexual assault to women’s fiction of this era. The rape novels of
the 21st century continue the political activism inherent in the genre—educating
readers, offering community to survivors, and encouraging social activism—as
the stories of male survivors are increasingly told. A radical reconsideration
of late twentieth-century American novels, Writing the Survivor underscores
the importance of women’s activism upon the novel’s form and content and reveals
the portrayal of rape as rape to be an interethnic imperative.