Famous Female Authors: Women Who Changed the Literary World

There practically exists no place in this world that is devoid of gender bias and the literary world is no exception to this fact. Women were expected to behave properly according to the etiquette and follow the footsteps of their husbands in the recent past. But, the scenario has changed now. Women are no longer restraining themselves to come out into the world and make their voice count. Despite the hardships during their period, a number of women writers contributed their work to the literature and proved that women can be accomplished writers too.


Here is a list of women who succeeded as writers.

J. K. Rowling

Originally known as Joanne Rowling, she wrote under the pen name J. K. Rowling to hide her gender. She was born in Yate, Gloucestershire, England to a well-educated family. As a student, she was brilliant and got straight A’s in English and French A-levels (language based advanced level tests).

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Until her debut novel, Rowling lived in utter poverty. She came into light with her first novel in The Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone. In 2016, she was ranked as the 197th richest person in the United Kingdom by the Sunday Times. J. K. Rowling is a role model and inspiration for many youngsters who desire to set their foot into the realm of literature.

Maya Angelou

Marguerite Anne Johnson (Maya Angelou) was born in Saint Louis, Missouri. She was a poet and civil rights, activist. Before entering the literary world she worked as a sex-worker, dancer, coordinator for the Southern Christian leadership conference and Journalist. This shows that her journey was not a cake walk.

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She is now well known for her works “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and “On the Pulse of Morning”. Within a span of 50 years, Maya Angelou published several books including her autobiographies and essays. She was also an accomplished director, producer and actress, altogether, an accomplished all-rounder.

Agatha Christie

The queen of crime fiction, Agatha Christie was born in Torquay, Devon, England. In her autobiography, she stated that her childhood was very happy and she was surrounded by a number of independent women, as the factors contributing towards her career. Though she was born in a wealthy family, her journey was not quite plain. Prior to her first novel “The Mysterious Affairs at Styles” she was rejected six times.

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With consistent hard work and perseverance, she took crime fiction to another level. She is famous for her novels featuring detective Hercule Poirot.  Her crime novel “And Then There Were None” still continues to be the best selling mystery. Agatha Christie holds the Guinness World record as the bestselling novelist of all time.

Jane Austen

Born in a small rural village in Hampshire, Jane Austen wrote six novels all of which are a huge hit. A little is known about her biography and family through the correspondence that occurred between her family members. She started writing poems ever since she was a child and is well known for her works “Sense and Sensibility” and “Pride and Prejudice”.

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Her works usually look into the necessity of marriage for a woman to have a favourable status in the society. A series of movies were made based on her novels all of which made close to $1 Billion at the box-office.


The list doesn’t end here:

• Virginia Woolf
• Charlotte Brontë
• George Eliot
• Arundhati Roy
• Emily Brontë
• Doris Lessing
• Sylvia Plath
• Enid Blyton

And still many more have had their share of success in the literary world.


Written by
Indu Mithra Madhuranthakam