Chopin, Kate

Chopin, Kate

 orig. Katherine O'Flaherty

(born Feb. 8, 1851, St. Louis, Mo., U.S.—died Aug. 22, 1904, St. Louis) U.S. writer. Chopin lived in Louisiana during her marriage and began to write after her husband's death. A local colourist and interpreter of New Orleans culture, she foreshadowed later feminist themes. Among her more than 100 short stories are “Désirée's Baby” and “Madame Celestin's Divorce.” The Awakening (1899), a realistic novel about the sexual and artistic awakening of a young mother who abandons her family, initially was condemned for its sexual frankness but was later acclaimed.

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Chopin, Kate (b. Katherine O'Flaherty) (1851–1904) writer; born in St. Louis, Mo. She returned to St. Louis to write professionally after the death of her husband, a Louisiana planter (1882). Her Creole tales (Bayou Folk (1894), A Night in Acadie (1897)) established her as a leading "local color" author. But after her novel The Awakening (1899) was attacked for its honest portrayal of a woman's unrepentant sexual passion, she virtually stopped publishing and was not rediscovered until the 1960s.