I don’t read modern fiction by women and I don’t know where to start to remedy the deficiency. In this day and age, when women’s voices need to be heard more than ever, I’m inadvertently perpetuating a culture that I don’t believe in. But where on earth do I start? I’d happily spend the next few years just reading novels by contemporary female authors, but I need guidance. Help.
40, Cambridge (wishes to remain anonymous)

Alex Clark, Guardian and Observer critic and artistic director of words and literature at Bath festival
Hello! What bliss it is to be you, with all that lies in store… Obviously, you can direct yourself to the current and past nominees of the women’s prize for fiction (2018 longlist), and many similar lists. But in terms of more detailed guidance, your question itself reveals how female authors have come to be seen as a monolith, a cultural entity to be scaled and conquered. Better to ask: What kind of writing do you like? What sort of fiction floats your boat?

Perhaps it’s historical (Hilary Mantel, Lissa Evans, Jennifer Egan’s latest, Manhattan Beach, or Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun). Maybe you’d like to discover some fiction in translation, via novelists such as Han Kang (The White Book, translated by Deborah Smith) or Leila Slimani (Lullaby, translated by Sam Taylor). Would you like to laugh with Nina Stibbe, or to cry with Hanya Yanagihara?

You see the issue: the world of books is fantastically plural, and you’ll only find what you like best by dipping a toe in. I hope that’s enticing rather than off-putting! And here are a few of my favourite female writers of today, from the established to the very new: Jane Smiley, Deborah Levy, Jenny Offill, Anne Enright, Carmen Maria Machado and Sarah Moss.

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