Novelist Kate Chopin's quest for creative freedom shocked the literary world in 1899 with her novel The Awakening. Chopin created the unforgettable character Edna Pontellier, a married woman who dared to seek her own emotional and sexual identity.

“I give myself where I please,” the independent Edna said.

Born Katherine O’Flaherty (1851–1904) in St. Louis, Missouri, Chopin was an only child raised by her strong French Creole mother. Widowed young, she turned to writing as a way to process her grief and support her family.

“But the beginning of things, of a world especially, is necessarily vague, tangled, chaotic, and exceedingly disturbing,” she observed.

Her bold vision was too much for the critics of her time. Dismissed and banned from Victorian society, Chopin never wrote another novel. Yet The Awakening was rediscovered in the 1960s and celebrated as a feminist breakthrough, a testament to love and passion.

“The bird that would soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice must have strong wings,” she said.