My favourite author - By Maria (one of my American interns).

I was in my local bookstore when I first saw Rebecca Solnit’s name. It was printed in white on the smooth lapis background of a thin, floppy book that read: Men Explain Things to Me. Wow. Men explaining things—men explaining things to women who don’t need men’s explanations. The described situation wasn’t new, but the fact that there was a book written on it was new. So I added the floppy book to my basket. A week later, Rebecca Solnit became my favorite author.

Solnit is an American writer. She was born in Connecticut, but attended school at San Francisco State and Berkeley. Her works span a variety of subjects: feminism, the environment, politics, and art. “Men Explain Things to Me” (the titular essay for Men Explain Things to Me) is her most famous piece because it inspired the term “mansplaining.” Despite this, the other essays in her collection are just as notable. Solnit connects experience, literature, history, and statistics to accurately portray how women around the world are treated. The picture she paints usually isn’t pretty; many of her works examine the pain and suffering caused by patriarchal power structures, the global silencing of women, and violence perpetrated against women.

My favorite essay, “Woolf’s Darkness: Embracing the Inexplicable” engages the idea of an uncertain, limitless future in relation to the influence of Virginia Woolf. Solnit suggests that there can be something good in all the unknown, and this is why she is my favorite author. Solnit discusses heavy topics, but she doesn’t dumb-down issues. She also doesn’t throw depressing truths at readers without reason; instead, Solnit provides readers with information that facilities discussion, leaving us with a hope for a better future.