Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul has announced that there is no female writer whom he considers his equal. He specifically dismisses Jane Austen's claim to literary fame, saying he "couldn't possibly share her sentimental ambitions, her sentimental sense of the world".

Yes, Jane Austen—a woman who once wrote "Mrs. Hall, of Sherborne, was brought to bed yesterday of a dead child, some weeks before she was expected, owing to a fright. I suppose that she happened unawares to look at her husband..." in a letter to her sister—was a master of sentiment, wasn't she?

Labels: Jane Austen, Sexism