A. K. Blakemore is the author of two full-length collections of poetry:
Humbert Summer (2015) and
Fondue (2018), which was awarded the 2019 Ledbury Forte Prize for Best Second Collection. She has also translated the work of Sichuanese poet Yu Yoyo (
My Tenantless Body, Poetry Translation Centre, 2019). Her poetry and prose writing has been widely published and anthologized, appearing in the
The London Review of Books,
Poetry,
Poetry Review and
The White Review, among others.
Blakemore's new book is
The Manningtree Witches.
At the
Guardian she tagged ten favorite matriarchs in fiction, including:
Tenar in Tehanu by Ursula K Le Guin
To my mind, Le Guin’s dazzling Earthsea Quartet ought to hold the place in our cultural esteem that Harry Potter and the etc does. We meet Tenar
in the second book of the series, The Tombs of Atuan, when she is taken to serve as a child priestess to the mysterious Nameless Ones. But it is in Tehanu – older, wiser, and desperate to protect Therru, a child who has fallen under her guardianship – that she comes into her own. As a semi-literate middle-aged woman, Tenar is far from the typical fantasy heroine. But her fearlessness and grit as she works to build a life for the child she loves is as thrilling as any of Sparrowhawk’s dragon battles. Most daringly, on Le Guin’s part, Tenar’s perspective serves to interrogate the sexual politics of the earlier Quartet, and the fantasy genre in general.
Read about
the other entries on the list.
--Marshal Zeringue
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