Nine of the best fiercely political women writers

Eve Fairbanks writes about change: in cities, countries, landscapes, morals, values, and our ideas of ourselves. A former political writer for The New Republic, her essays and reportage have been published in The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Guardian, among other outlets. Born in Virginia, she now lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Inheritors: An Intimate Portrait of South Africa's Racial Reckoning is her debut.

At Lit Hub Fairbanks tagged nine women "writers we can read to adjust the masculine take on political analysis that still dominates." One entry on the list:

Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, A Human Being Died That Night: A South African Woman Confronts the Legacy of Apartheid

A clinical psychologist, Gobodo-Madikizela repeatedly visited a South African prison to face the white man responsible for plotting some of apartheid’s most grotesque injustices against Black South Africans. “Have I ever killed any of your friends or family?” the former police colonel, Eugene de Kock, asks her once. As well as delivering a deeply arresting portrait of how people come to do evil for political causes, Gobodo-Madikizela considers how someone like her—a victim and, like most people, a witness to great events—can think about large-scale evil and tragedy and remain a motivated citizen.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue