Why I prefer male authors Last week Ferdinand Mount wrote of his preference for women writers. The Guardian Reading is a kind of question, to which all the answers cannot be given by one gender alone. Nor should we only pursue the answers we want to hear. While I would say no on all counts, this imbalance, which I'm sure has nothing do with capability, must signify something.
Sheer presence makes the canon so impermeable and self-perpetuating.
One of the wonders of teenage reading is its lack of worldliness. I picked up Sartre's Iron in the Soul because I liked the Cubist cover. It baffled and delighted me, so I read some more. While admiring the project of the publishing house Virago, I found those green spines worthy, even admonitory. I went for the white spines of Picador, which is how I came to read people like Maxine Hong Kingston - not because she was a woman, but because I trusted from the imprint that she would be different and good.