Best novels by women

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The Rules

Evelyne Accad: L’Excisée (The Excised)
Jessica Anderson: Tirra Lirra by the River
Ingeborg Bachmann: Malina (Malina)
Toni Cade Bambara: The Salt Eaters
Anna Banti: Artemisia (Artemisia)
Pat Barker: World War 1 Trilogy
Djuna Barnes: Nightwood
Stella Benson: Tobit Transplanted (US: The Far-Away Bride)
Marie-Claire Blais: Visions d’Anna (Anna’s World)
Isabel Bolton: Do I Wake or Sleep
María Luisa Bombal: La amortajada (The Shrouded Woman)
Ginevra Bompiani: Vecchio cielo, nuova terra [Old Sky, New Earth]
Carmen Boullosa: La Milagrosa (The Miracle-Worker)
Elizabeth Bowen: The Death of the Heart
Karin Boye: Kallocain (Kallocain)
Kay Boyle: Generation without Farewell
Mary Butts: Ashe of Rings
A S Byatt: The Virgin in the Garden
Angela Carter: Wise Children
Rosario Castellanos: Balún-Canán (The Nine Guardians)
Willa Cather: Song of the Lark
Alice Ceresa: Bambine [Girls]
Kate Chopin: The Awakening
Fausta Cialente: Le quattro ragazze Wieselberger [The Four Wieselberger Girls]
Merle Collins: Angel
Maryse Condé: Ségou (Segu)
Tsitsi Dangarembga: Nervous Condition
Simone de Beauvoir: L’invitée (She Came to Stay)
Alba de Céspedes: Dalla parte di lei (The Best of Husbands)
Anita Desai: Fire on the Mountain
Ellen Douglas: Apostles of Light
Duong Thu Huong: Tiểu Tuyết Vô Đề (Novel Without a Name)
Zee Edgell: The Festival of San Joaquin
Jennifer Egan: A Visit From the Goon Squad
Anne Enright: The Gathering
Jenny Erpenbeck: Heimsuchung (Visitation)
Regina Ezera: Aka [The Well]
Marianne Fritz: Dessen Sprache du nicht verstehst [Whose Language You Do Not Understand]
Elena Garro: Los recuerdos del porvenir (Recollections of Things to Come)
Sylvie Germain: Jours de colère (Days of Anger)
Teolinda Gersão: O silêncio [Silence]
Natalia Ginzburg: La città e la casa (The City and the House)
Ellen Glasgow: Life and Gabriella
Yasmine Gooneratne: The Pleasures of Conquest
Nadine Gordimer: Burger’s Daughter
Caroline Gordon: The Women on the Porch
Déwé Gorodé: L’épave [The Wreck]
Almudena Grandes: Malena es un nombre de tango [Malena is the Name of a Tango]
Nino Haratischwili: Das achte Leben (The Eighth Life)
Ann Harries: Manly Pursuits
Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God
Qurratulain Hyder: آگ کا دریا (River of Fire)
Elfriede Jelinek: Die Kinder der Toten [The Children of the Dead]
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala: Heat and Dust
A L Kennedy: Paradise
Jamaica Kincaid: Mr. Potter
Esther Kinsky; Rombo (Rombo)
Agota Kristof: Le grand cahier (The Notebook) Trilogy
Doris Lessing: The Golden Notebook
Clarice Lispector: A paixão segundo G.H. (The Passion according to G.H.)
Journal Kyaw Ma Ma Lay: Mone Ywe Mahu (Not Out of Hate)
Deirdre Madden: The Birds of Innocent Wood
Hilary Mantel: Beyond Black
Gianna Manzini: Lettera all’editore [Letter to the Publisher]
Dacia Maraini: La lunga vita di Marianna Ucrìa (The Silent Duchess)
Ana María Matute: Paraíso inhabitado [Uninhabited Paradise]
Mary McCarthy: The Group
Carson McCullers: The Member of the Wedding
Sue Miller: Lost in the Forest
Lorrie Moore: A Gate at the Stairs
Elsa Morante: Menzogna e sortilegio (House of Liars)
Toni Morrison: Beloved
Amélie Nothomb: Le sabotage amoureux (Loving Sabotage)
Joyce Carol Oates: them
Flannery O’Connor: Wise Blood
Pola Oloixarac: Las constelaciones oscuras (Dark Constellations)
Anna Maria Ortese: L’iguana (The Iguana)
Park Kyŏng-ni: 토지 (Land)
Ann Patchett: State of Wonder
Sylvia Plath: The Bell Jar
Ann Quin: Berg
Jean Rhys: Wide Sargasso sea
Dorothy Richardson: Pilgrimage
Henry Handel Richardson: The Fortunes of Richard Mahony
Carme Riera: Joc de miralls (Mirror Images)
Mercè Rodoreda: La plaça del Diamant (UK: The Pigeon Girl; US: The Time of the Doves)
Monique Saint-Hélier: Bois-Mort (The Abandoned Wood)
Leslie Marmon Silko: Ceremony
Ali Smith: Spring
Stevie Smith: Novel on Yellow Paper
Ahdaf Soueif: The Map of Love
Muriel Spark: The Hothouse by the East River
Christina Stead: The Man Who Loved Children
Maria Stepanova: Памяти памяти (In Memory of Memory)
Donna Tartt: The Secret History
Olga Tokarczuk: Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych (Drive Your Plough over the Bones of the Dead)
Esther Tusquets: El amor es un juego solitario (Love is a Solitary Game)
Luisa Valenzuela: Cola de lagartija (The Lizard’s Tail)
Alice Walker: The Color Purple
Eudora Welty: The Optimist’s Daughter
Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth
Jeanette Winterson: The Passion
Virginia Woolf: Mrs. Dalloway
Christa Wolf: Nachdenken über Christa T. (The Quest for Christa T)