The Awakening and Selected Stories - Paperback

by Kate Chopin (Author), Claire Vaye Watkins (Introduction by)

Kate Chopin's groundbreaking depiction of a woman who dares to defy the expectations of society in the pursuit of her desire

When The Awakening was first published in 1899, charges of sordidness and immorality seemed to consign it into obscurity and irreparably damage its author's reputation. But a century after her death, it is widely regarded as Kate Chopin's great achievement. Through careful, subtle changes of style, Chopin shows the transformation of Edna Pontellier, a young wife and mother, who - with tragic consequences - refuses to be caged by married and domestic life, and claims for herself moral and erotic freedom.

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Author Biography

Kate Chopin (1851-1904) did not write until she was thirty-six years old. Her first novel, At Fault (1890), had difficulty finding a publisher, so she brought it out at her own expense. From her many stories, she culled two well-reviewed collections: Bayou Folk in 1894 and A Night in Acadie in 1897. The Awakening, now her best-known work, appeared in 1899.

Claire Vaye Watkins is the author of Battleborn and Gold Fame Citrus. Her stories and essays have appeared in Granta, One Story, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. A Guggenheim Fellow, one of the National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" and Granta's "Best Young American Novelists," Claire is the director and co-founder of the Mojave School, a festival of art and literature in the Mojave Desert.