Women on War: An International Anthology of Women's Writings from Antiquity to the Present - Paperback

by Daniella Gioseffi (Editor)

From Margaret Atwood to Daisy Zamora, Simone de Beauvoir to Virginia Woolf, many of the world's greatest women writers have reflected upon one of humanity's most tragic and powerful experiences: war. Yet most of these writings are little known, just as women's perceptions of war remain largely absent from the history books.

Women on War gathers together writings by more than 150 women, including renowned poets, novelists, essayists, journalists, and activists, as well as ordinary women with firsthand experience of armed conflict as survivors, refugees, rape victims, nurses, and soldiers. Spanning the globe and traversing more than two centuries, the pieces in this compelling collection range from an ancient verse by Sappho about a wife who awaits the return of her warrior husband to an essay by Arundhati Roy about the impact of September 11. In voices that are gripping, mournful, defiant, and often surprisingly hopeful, these writers join to produce a portrait of wartime experience and a plea for peace.

Author Biography

Daniela Gioseffi is the author of several volumes of poetry and fiction, including Word Wounds and Water Flowers, and In Bed With the Exotic Enemy. In addition to Women on War, she edited a second award-winning anthology, On Prejudice: A Global Perspective, which won a World Peace Award from the Ploughshares Fund.