‘Belonging nowhere?’: Labelling British Experimental Women’s Fiction of the Long Sixties

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the ways in which a range of relatively neglected British women writers (including Ann Quin, Anna Kavan, Eva Figes, Christine Brooke-Rose and Brigid Brophy) have been labelled, both during and after the long sixties. By giving an overview of the various categorisations attributed to women’s experimental fiction in Britain and the ways in which they have been employed, it interrogates the reasons for the critical neglect of British experimental women’s writing whilst at the same time teasing out to what extent the categorisation ‘neo-avant-garde’ might be a useful term in exploring the influences and persisting concerns of their innovative novels.