Kate Chopin was an American writer of short stories, although her most famous work was the novel The Awakening (1899). This novel was banished because it was too adavanced for her time: the critics couldn't bear the feminist behaviour of her characters nor her treatment of the female sexuality or infidelity (remember she lived in the South of the USA, where they say people are more tradicionalist and can (or could) speak French). So most of people considered her writings offensive and they were forgotten until in the 1970s, when she was rediscovered for this feminist attitude, and, from then on, her novel and short stories have been republished several times.
Chopin had a hard life because of the successive loss of her husband, her business, and her mother. A friend of Chopin's, a doctor, suggested her to start writing, believing that it could be a good thereapy for her, and thus also to give way to her enormous energy.
Her short stories follow the topics and the style of the French writer Guy de Maupassant. He was a realistic or naturalistic writer, a bit pessimistic and with a good taste for life ironies.
Kate Chopin at the Library: here!
SOME QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU WITH THE READING:
plantation
stubble
cabin
fan (verb)
reeds
willow