Feminist Fiction Reading Group

Please note that places for this reading group are very limited. If you book a place and can’t make it, we would be grateful if you could let us know as soon as you can so that we can offer your place to someone else.

For March, we will be reading and discussing The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett (2020). Shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2021, this novel follows two young women who are twins and had run away together at sixteen to restart their lives. However, due to their ambiguous complexions, one has chosen to pass as white and one has chosen to pass as black. If you are wanting another source to read in order to prepare for our discussion, Bennett’s novel was inspired by the novella Passing (1929) by Nella Larsen, which follows a similar theme of two black women living in separate societal spheres due to the color of their skin. The conversation will be focused on Bennett’s novel and The Vanishing Half’s themes of intersectionality within contemporary feminist settings.

Each place costs £5 per ticket, and we hope you’ll join us on March 6th for some great conversation and a glass of wine!

As a reminder, below is a complete list of all the novels we plan to read and discuss for the Feminist Fiction Reading Group:

The Tropes of Women Literature:

February 6th: Bringing Down the Duke by Evie Dunmore

March 6th: The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

The Complexities of Motherhood:

April 3rd: Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

May 1st: The Lost Daughter by Elena Ferrante

The Horrors of Femininity:

June 5th: Blue Ticket by Sophie Mackintosh

July 3rd: Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado"