The Awakening

Written by Kate Chopin

Narrated by Margaret Melosh

Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf coast at the end of the 19th century, 'The Awakening" focuses on Edna Pontellier and her struggle to resolve her increasingly unorthodox views to husband and children. Although life for women was so much more restrictive in those days, she leaves society and understands that she is so much more than a mother and a wife. The novel is one of the earliest American novels that focus on women's issues without condescension.It is also widely seen as a milestone work of early feminism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Musaicum Books
• Release date: Jun 1, 2019

Kate Chopin

Kate Chopin (1850-1904) was an American writer. Born in St. Louis, Missouri to a family with French and Irish ancestry, Chopin was raised Roman Catholic. An avid reader, Chopin graduated from Sacred Heart Convent in 1968 before marrying Oscar Chopin, with whom she moved to New Orleans in 1870. The two had six children before Oscar’s death in 1882, which left the family with extensive debts and forced Kate to take over her husband’s businesses, including the management of several plantations and a general store. In the early 1890s, back in St. Louis and suffering from depression, Chopin began writing short stories, articles, and translations for local newspapers and literary magazines. Although she achieved moderate critical acclaim for her second novel, The Awakening (1899)—now considered a classic of American literature and a pioneering work of feminist fiction—fame and success eluded her in her lifetime. In the years since her death, however, Chopin has been recognized as a leading author of her generation who captured with a visionary intensity the lives of Southern women, often of diverse or indeterminate racial background.