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Jean Rhys

May 30, 2019

Rhys was born in the island of Dominica in 1894, although she resided in England and other Western European countries from 1910 until her passing in 1979. After writing most of her work – the novels The Left Bank, Quartet, After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie, Voyage to the Dark and Good Morning Midnight – between 1928 and 1939, the author disappeared and it was assumed that she had died. In 1966 she dramatically reappeared, with the publication of the novel Wide Sargasso Sea, which won the W.H. Smith Literary Prize, the Heinemann Prize and the Royal Society of Literature Prize. Through her narrative, which focuses on the alienation of women in a patriarchal world, Rhys explores the psychological disintegration of her affecting characters.  In 1978, she was conferred the title of C.B.E. (Commander, Order of the British Empire). Jean Rhys continues to be a frequently referenced and a widely-read author by the contemporary British public.