Interview - Kasia Van Schaik and Women Among Monuments: Solitude, Permission, and the Pursuit of Female Genius
Canada Reads American Style · Canada Reads American Style
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Show Notes
Rebecca is excited to chat with Dr. Kasia Van Schaik about her latest book, Women Among Monuments: Solitude, Permission, and the Pursuit of Female Genius, published on February 17, 2026 by Dundurn Books.
https://www.dundurn.com/books_/t22117/a9781459752627-women-among-monuments :
A lyrical meditation on the enduring obstacles women artists and writers face in a world still unaccustomed to recognizing female genius.
What does it take for a woman to don the mantle of genius — a title long reserved for male artists? From her studies in Montreal to a dead-end job in Berlin, a midnight tour of Paris, a bankrupt art residency on the Toronto Islands, and a mysterious sculpture garden in the Karoo desert, South African—Canadian author and professor Kasia Van Schaik considers what it means for a young woman to call herself an artist and claim a creative life.
Drawing on a diverse web of literary and cultural sources and artistic icons — from Georgia O’Keeffe to Ana Mendieta, Gertrude Stein to Jamaica Kincaid, Leslie Marmon Silko to Bernadette Mayer — Women Among Monuments asks, What, beyond a room of one’s own, are the necessary conditions for female genius? Where does the inner flint of artistic permission come from? What is the oxygen that keeps it burning?
In her memoir interwoven with incisive biographies of female solitude, constraint, and perseverance, Van Schaik blazes a trail for more inclusive artmaking practices, communities, and monuments.
Books and Authors mentioned:
- The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Along by Olivia Lainy
- Ginny Ross series (Amelia Earhart) by Heather Stemp
- Voyage in the Dark; Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
https://www.unb.ca/faculty-staff/directory/arts-fr-english/van-schaik-kasia.html
https://gillerprize.ca/scotiabank-giller-prize-spotlight-kasia-van-schaik/
https://www.instagram.com/kasia_writes
https://electricliterature.com/why-i-left-men-for-books/