Siri Hustvedt: 'I responded viscerally to De Beauvoir's The Second Sex'

The US author on becoming a feminist, growing into Gertrude Stein, and the comfort of folk tales My earliest reading memoryAt six I became fascinated with the Lonely Doll books by Dare Wright that I found in the public library of my small town, Northfield, Minnesota. They used photographs, not drawings, as illustrations; they gave me an uncanny feeling of secrets lurking behind the words and images. It is a feeling I have never forgotten. My favourite book growing upI loved Ann Petry's biography...