I love this line from a Los Angeles Times review in 2000: “By giving a voice to Dinah, one of the silent female characters in Genesis, the novel has struck a chord with women who may have felt left out of biblical history.
In Genesis, all we learn is that Schechem “defiled” Dinah, although he is described as being “in love with the maiden.” In Diamant’s retelling, Dinah is in love with Schechem - and willingly becomes his bride. The titular red tent refers to the tent where women had to go when they were menstruating or giving birth. I remember reading The Red Tent for the first time, and being blown away by the vividness with which Diamant tells Dinah’s story, and the story of Jacob’s first wife, Leah. If you thought Jacob just had 12 sons, you thought wrong.
It’s a rule that all lists about feminist biblical retellings must start with The Red Tent, right!? First published in 1997, The Red Tent tells the story of Dinah, the daughter of Jacob and Leah. (Thank you to everyone who replied to my tweet!) (And, uh, I guess I’ll put this disclaimer: If you’re somehow here looking for Christian Bible stories, you are in the wrong place.) So without further ado, here are five feminist retellings of biblical stories you must read, based on my personal favorites and recommendations from Twitter. It’s the same reason I love books like Madeline Miller’s Circe or Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s Kintu, and why I was obsessed with the Percy Jackson series these retellings take foundational myths and rewrite them in completely engaging ways. These writers take either a well-known story or a minor character and bring them to life, vividly, through fiction. What I love about this kind of book is that they don’t just re-tell the stories - they reinvent them.
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