Women's History Month Program Spotlights The Secret Life And Public Notoriety Of Kate Chopin

BATON ROUGE, La. – It was 125 years ago when Kate Chopin's The Awakening hit shelves – and faced immediate backlash.

Called "poison" by The St. Louis Republic and "trite and sordid" by The Pittsburgh Leader, the novel about a woman who embarks upon a journey of self-discovery while on vacation in Grand Isle was out of step for the time and largely forgotten until well into the 20th century.

Who was Chopin and what led her to write the controversial novel in 1899? Dr. Emily Toth will answer that question during her presentation, "Kate Chopin's Secret Life and Public Notoriety," as the Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library of Louisiana celebrates Women's History Month.

The virtual program will be available on YouTube and Facebook on Monday, March 18, 2024.

Toth, who writes about Louisiana women and describes herself as a "lifelong fan of gossip and biography," is a professor of English and women's studies at LSU. She holds a PhD in comparative literature from Johns Hopkins University, where she "discovered Kate Chopin and the power of women's secrets," according to her academic biography. "She honed her listening and secret-finding skills as a professor at Louisiana State University."

Toth is the author of Kate Chopin, a 1990 biography of the writer that was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written four other books on the author. The Louisiana Center for the Book, established in the State Library of Louisiana in 1994 for the purpose of stimulating public interest in reading, books, literacy, and libraries and celebrating Louisiana's rich literary heritage, is the state affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book. For more information, please visit LouisianaBookFestival.org and follow us on Facebook.

Daniel Monteverde
State Library of Louisiana
dmonteverde@SLOL.LIB.LA.US
225-342-4930

Veronica Mosgrove
Office of the Lieutenant Governor
vmosgrove@crt.la.gov
225-342-7009