Her Story Is Like a Weed: Censoring the Vulnerability in Women's Writing

The aim of this article is to broaden feminist scholarship on women writers by exploring the relationship between women's writing, intimacy, vulnerability and censorship, and the rediscovering and canonization of women's writing in Latvian literary culture. In the early twentieth century, intimacy and motherhood as a source of vulnerability in women's writing was closely linked to censorship, which revealed enduring patriarchal attitudes. The disclosure of vulnerability associated with a woman's embodied experience was a weed which critics wanted to weed out. Focusing on the example of Anna Rumane-Kenina (1877- 1950), whose literary texts create experimental journeys into intimacy, exploring the inner states of female characters, family relationships and particular situations (death and grief that bring her characters into intimate contact with others and change the shape and experience of intimacies), the article examines the censoring attitude of literary criticism towards the openness with which women's experiences are discussed.

Automated summary

The aim of this article is to broaden feminist scholarship on women writers in Latvian literary culture by exploring the relationship between women's writing, intimacy, vulnerability, and censorship. It examines how censorship in the early twentieth century revealed patriarchal attitudes towards women's writing that portrayed intimacy and motherhood as sources of vulnerability. The article focuses on the works of Anna Rumane-Kenina, who used experimental journeys into intimacy to discuss female experiences, family relationships, and situations that bring characters into intimate contact with others.