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INTRODUCED BY ALEXANDRA HARRIS
Fenwomen is a vivid social and oral history of one isolated Fens village, told through the voices of the women who lived there. The lives and memories it records stretch back for almost a century, creating a unique portrait of work, marriage, struggles and hopes in a rural working-class community where most women lived their entire lives within the area, intermarriage was common, and a single family had owned all the village land.
A unique snapshot of a vanished England, and of the deeply traditional rhythms that still governed rural life in the second half of the twentieth century, Fenwomen continues to give voice to women who have so often been unheard. A feminist counterpart to Ronald Blyth's Akenfield, it was the inspiration behind Caryl Churchill's award-winning play Fen, and was the first book ever published by Virago.