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The regularity with which people casually cite really big writers at any given time, the regularity that list will be all-male or nearly all-male, in the United States, is astonishing. Even from afar, when people write in Britain who the great writers are in the United States, without forcing themselves of being mindful and trying to think of some women, they’ll rattle off a bunch of men. That is discouraging. I don’t know why it’s worse in the U.S., but it is. … I believe in the United States, the Great American Novel translates to Big Fat Novel Written by a man. It is, by definition, by a man. That term is never applied to a woman. It’s not as if women just sit around writing about recipes! Plenty of women write about the state of the country and have some scope to their work. But they will not invite that term. There is just a persistent impression in the U.S. that the pantheon is populated by men.