Certainly sexism has something to do with the hostility towards Joy Davidman. I can find no other reason why articles and essays about her neglect to mention her clout as a poet. She received the most prestigious award a new poet can receive – the Yale Younger Poets Series Award – for her 1938 poetry collection, “Letter to a Comrade.” A year later, Davidman was named joint recipient — with Robert Frost — of the $1,000 Loines Memorial Fund. She went on to write two novels. Her final work, “Smoke on the Mountain,” is a vivid, provocative interpretation of the Decalogue still in print after half a century. That's in addition to inspiring what some critics see as Lewis’ greatest work, “Till We Have Faces,” as well as being its dedicatee (as he was hers in “Smoke”). Some say she is even the model for its tough and invincible heroine, Orual. Please see my 2006 San Francisco Chronicle article:
Certainly sexism has something to do with the hostility towards Joy Davidman. I can find no other reason why articles and essays about her neglect to mention her clout as a poet. She received the most prestigious award a new poet can receive – the Yale Younger Poets Series Award – for her 1938 poetry collection, “Letter to a Comrade.” A year later, Davidman was named joint recipient — with Robert Frost — of the $1,000 Loines Memorial Fund. She went on to write two novels. Her final work, “Smoke on the Mountain,” is a vivid, provocative interpretation of the Decalogue still in print after half a century. That's in addition to inspiring what some critics see as Lewis’ greatest work, “Till We Have Faces,” as well as being its dedicatee (as he was hers in “Smoke”). Some say she is even the model for its tough and invincible heroine, Orual. Please see my 2006 San Francisco Chronicle article:
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