The 100 best books about the body and illness by women

No. 11 on this list. 4.48 Psychosis · Sarah Kane · 2000

Recognized as one of the most important plays of the late twentieth century and Kane's masterpiece. Widely performed, translated, and studied internationally.

No. 12 on this list. Live or Die · Anne Sexton · 1966

Anne Sexton arranged these thirty-three poems in the order she wrote them — January 1962 to February 1966 — and called the result 'a fever chart for a bad case of melancholy.' Each poem arrives with a date at the bottom, evidence rather than ornament. The collection opens with her father, a wool salesman who drank in his bedroom and died on the road; within pages she has checked herself into a psychiatric ward, addressed Sylvia Plath's corpse ('Thief!— how did you crawl into, crawl down alone into the death I wanted so badly'), mourned a son she never had, and watched her daughter call on God instead of her mother when a horse crushes her foot. Sexton's language stays in the body. She counts out eight pharmaceutical capsules each night, arranges them 'as in the laying on of hands or the black sacrament.' Suicides, she observes, 'have a special language. Like carpenters they want to know which tools. They never ask why build.' The hospital and the suburban kitchen share equal authority. God appears, and Mary, and Judas, and Sylvia, and none of them offer adequate answers. The final poem, 'Live,' turns the collection's entire argument on its axis. Eight Dalmatian puppies survive the pails of water that waited to drown them. 'I am not what I expected. Not an Eichmann. The poison just didn't take.' The fever chart ends with a temperature that isn't, finally, fatal. This is the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection that defined confessional poetry as a form capable of sustaining both unbearable honesty and survival.

No. 13 on this list. Dear Life · Alice Munro · 2012

Munro's final collection, published the year before her Nobel Prize. Regarded as a fitting capstone to one of the great careers in short fiction.

No. 14 on this list. Nights at the Circus · Angela Carter · 1984

Nights at the Circus is a regular text in university courses on postmodern, feminist and magical-realist fiction, and probably Angela Carter's most studied novel. It is usually set alongside The Bloody Chamber as the core of her work.

No. 15 on this list. The Sea, The Sea · Iris Murdoch · 1978

Winner of the Booker Prize in 1978 and widely regarded as one of Iris Murdoch's finest novels. Wikipedia articles exist in 9 languages. While not as universally assigned as postwar American canon fixtures, it appears regularly in British literature and philosophy-and-fiction courses.

No. 16 on this list. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay · Elena Ferrante · 2013

The Neapolitan Novels have become required reading in contemporary fiction and world literature courses across Europe and North America, and the series as a whole appears on hundreds of university syllabi. This third volume is less commonly assigned as a standalone text than the series opener, but no major literary conversation about contemporary Italian fiction or female friendship narratives omits it. The series' Wikipedia presence spans 30+ languages, signaling genuine global reach.

No. 17 on this list. Human Acts · Han Kang · 2014

Han Kang's Nobel Prize in 2024 elevated this novel's global profile significantly, but it appears on only 59 university syllabi (44th percentile in Open Syllabus) and has Wikipedia articles in just 5 languages. Curricular adoption outside Korean literature courses remains limited, though the Nobel will accelerate its integration into world literature programs.

No. 18 on this list. Flights · Olga Tokarczuk · 2007

Flights won the International Booker Prize in 2018, placing it in the conversation for essential contemporary world literature. The Wikipedia article data appears matched to a disambiguation page (13 languages), suggesting the novel's own article has broader reach. Its experimental structure limits adoption in introductory syllabi, but it appears consistently in world literature and contemporary fiction courses at graduate level.

No. 19 on this list. Woman on the Edge of Time · Marge Piercy · 1976

Widely taught in feminist literary studies, utopian fiction, and American literature courses since its 1976 publication, the novel holds a firm place in academic syllabi as a landmark of feminist science fiction. No syllabus count data is available, but its sustained presence across women's studies and speculative fiction curricula for five decades marks it as canonical within those fields, comparable in reach to other key feminist texts of the second wave.

No. 20 on this list. Wise Children · Angela Carter · 1991

Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

Wise Children is regularly taught in British university courses on postmodern fiction, feminist literature, and Angela Carter's work. It appears on syllabi across UK and US institutions focused on late twentieth-century British fiction and magic realism. It lacks the mass-curriculum presence of Carter's Bloody Chamber but holds a secure place in specialist postmodern studies.

No. 21 on this list. Memento Mori · Muriel Spark · 1959

Memento Mori appears regularly on British literature syllabi and features on multiple 'best British novels of the 20th century' lists, including various critics' and publishers' canons. It is not universally taught at the introductory level — The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie holds that role for Spark — but it circulates steadily in graduate seminars on postwar British fiction and dark comedy traditions. The database returned no syllabus count, but Spark's broader canonical standing ensures the novel's ongoing presence.

No. 22 on this list. Breath, Eyes, Memory · Edwidge Danticat · 1994

Widely assigned in Caribbean literature, diaspora studies, and postcolonial fiction courses at American universities. Oprah's Book Club selection in 1998 cemented its classroom presence, and it appears consistently on syllabi focused on Haitian-American experience and the literature of trauma. Its reach falls below Nobel-era Caribbean writers like Derek Walcott but well above works with only genre-course placement.

No. 23 on this list. The Woman Destroyed · Simone de Beauvoir · 1967

The Woman Destroyed appears regularly in French literature, feminist theory, and women's writing courses internationally, though it is less universally canonical than The Second Sex or The Mandarins. No syllabus data was found in the database, and Wikipedia language data was unavailable, but the collection has maintained continuous critical presence since its 1967 publication. It is established as a significant de Beauvoir work but is not a curriculum fixture the way her philosophical writing is.

No. 24 on this list. Moon Tiger · Penelope Lively · 1987

Moon Tiger appears on approximately 40 university syllabi according to Open Syllabus, placing it in the upper-middle range of taught contemporary fiction. Wikipedia articles exist in 5 languages. It holds a secure but not dominant place in the postwar British fiction canon, regularly appearing in courses on Booker Prize literature and late-twentieth-century experimental narrative.

No. 25 on this list. The Summer Book · Tove Jansson · 1972

Increasingly recognized as a Scandinavian masterpiece. A quiet classic with a devoted readership.

No. 26 on this list. Bluets · Maggie Nelson · 2009

Bluets is a fixture on MFA poetry and creative nonfiction syllabi and appears regularly in lyric essay and experimental prose anthologies. No data signals in the database reflect its syllabus presence, but its standing in contemporary poetics courses is strong. It has not entered secondary education curricula and remains outside mainstream literary canon lists, placing it well below Beloved (85) but above cult-following works like Infinite Jest (78) on different axes.

No. 27 on this list. Blonde · Joyce Carol Oates · 2000

Blonde occupies a significant position in contemporary American literature, taught in courses on Oates, postmodern fiction, and biographical novels. While not yet a fixture in the traditional literary canon, it appears regularly in syllabi on late 20th-century fiction and feminist rewritings of cultural mythology. Its length and formal ambition mark it as a major work, though canonical status remains emerging rather than entrenched.

No. 28 on this list. The Professor's House · Willa Cather · 1925

The Professor's House appears regularly on American modernism and twentieth-century American fiction syllabi, though Cather's more taught works are My Antonia and Death Comes for the Archbishop. It features in interwar American literature courses and appears on numerous essential Cather reading lists. Its formal experiment and psychological depth have earned it sustained scholarly attention since its 1925 publication.

No. 29 on this list. Mr Loverman · Bernardine Evaristo · 2013

Mr Loverman appears on syllabi in postcolonial British literature and diaspora fiction courses, though database signals show limited formal syllabus tracking. Bernardine Evaristo's 2019 Booker Prize win for Girl, Woman, Other significantly raised the novel's academic profile, and it is frequently assigned alongside her other work.

No. 30 on this list. A Question of Power · Bessie Head · 1974

A Question of Power is a fixture in postcolonial literature, African literature, and feminist literature courses worldwide, though it occupies a more specialized niche than canonical Western texts. No automated syllabus data was retrieved, but the novel appears consistently on African literature reading lists and in postcolonial studies curricula.