Campaign for the American Reader: Ten great boundary-breaking women of fiction

Louisa Treger has worked as a classical violinist. She studied at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and worked as a freelance

orchestral player and teacher. Treger subsequently turned to literature, gaining a First Class degree and a Ph.D. in English at University College London, where she focused on early 20th century women’s writing and was awarded the West Scholarship and the Rosa Morison Scholarship “for distinguished work in the study of English Language and Literature.” The Lodger was published in 2014, The Dragon Lady in 2019 and she is currently working on her third novel.

At CrimeReads Treger tagged ten "strong women who refused to conform and who struggled to find their place in the world," including:

Offred in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Offred lives in a dystopian society where women have no autonomy. She has been taken away from her husband and child and forced into a sexual relationship, yet she manages to retain her identity through small acts of disobedience. She steals butter and uses it as face and hand cream. She meets a man’s eyes in public, when she’s not supposed to look at men.

It’s an event, a small defiance of rule, so small as to be undetectable, but such moments are the rewards I hold out for myself, like the candy I hoarded, as a child, at the back of a drawer.
Offred’s unbroken spirit demonstrates the limitations of Gilead’s power over its subjects.