Anna Beer: "Eve Bites Back: An Alternative History of English Literature"

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Dr Anna Beer, the author of five acclaimed biographies and a Visiting Fellow at Kellogg College in Oxford, chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting Eve Bites Back: An Alternative History of English Literature. Eve Bites Back includes biographical sketches and reappraisals of eight talented female authors who lived, wrote and published between the 14th and 19th centuries.

Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

• Why Anna Beer chose the title Eve Bites Back
• Why Anna opened Eve Bites Back with a feisty outline of the obstacles female authors have faced throughout history that have consigned them to literary silence
• Anna’s rigorous research strategy given that women were usually invisible in pre 20th century archives
• How the characters of the eight authors drove the plot of each biographical sketch and the shape of Eve Bites Back
• How Anna balanced life writing and literary analysis
• The literary devices Anna employed to craft captivating narrative
• How Anna balanced authenticity and authoritativeness with wittiness, irony, questioning and righteous indignation.