“Shame is something you'll find a lot of - particularly Catholic - girls feel about their bodies, about their sexuality, about their diet, about anything you like. Shame is the way you keep them down. That's the way to crush a girl.”

English novelist and writer, contemporary

Rachel Cusk is an English novelist and writer of memoir and other nonfiction. She is known for fiction and prose published across several books, and for a career that has drawn award recognition. Her work has won the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Somerset Maugham Award, and has also been shortlisted and longlisted for prizes including the Governor General's Award and the Booker Prize. Her writing often addresses motherhood, marriage, satire, and more experimental approaches to narrative.