Tillie Olsen

Jennifer Hoofard
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By any estimation, Tillie Olsen was hardly a prolific writer. Indeed, her entire literary reputation stands on 5 published short stories, a book of essays and an unfinished novel. Yet few writers have done more to evolve the form of the short story, or inspired the devotion that Olsen has from the next generation of women writers. In her review of

Silences

in the

New York Times Book Review,

Margaret Atwood argued,

Among women writers in the United States, ‘respect’ is too pale a word: ‘reverence’ is more like it. This is presumably because women writers, even more than their male counterparts, recognize what a heroic feat it is to have held down a job, raised four children and still managed to become and remain a writer. (Nelson and Huse, 1994, 250-251)

Among women writers…

1431 words

Citation: Hoofard, Jennifer. "Tillie Olsen". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 December 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3414, accessed 29 March 2024.]

3414 Tillie Olsen 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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