Daughter of Earth

by Agnes Smedley, Alice Walker (Forword), Nancy Hoffman (Afterword)

This gritty autobiographical novel recreates the amazing life story of an American working class woman. Revered writer and activist Agnes Smedley worked to advance the cause of human justice on three continents as a writer and political activist. Here, she relives in fictionalized form her first thirty-three years—growing up on the wrong side of the tracks; discovering double standards of class, race, and sex among East Coast intellectuals; facing false espionage charges; and maintaining her independence through two tormented marriages.

Genres: Fiction, Feminism, Historical Fiction, Literature, Classics, Politics, China

426 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

Agnes Smedley (February 23, 1892 – May 6, 1950) was an American journalist and writer. Well known for her semi-autobiographical novel Daughter of Earth, she also known for her sympathetic chronicling of the Communist forces in the Chinese Civil War. During World War I, she worked in the United States for the independence of India from the United Kingdom, receiving financial support from the government of Germany, and for many years worked for or with the Comintern, frequently in an espionage capacity. As the lover of Soviet super spy Richard Sorge in Shanghai in the early 1930s, she helped get him established for his final and greatest work as spymaster in Tokyo. She also worked on behalf of various causes including women's rights, birth control, and children's welfare. Smedley wrote six books, including a novel, reportage, and a biography of the Chinese general Zhu De, reported for newspapers such as New York Call, Frankfurter Zeitung and Manchester Guardian, and wrote for periodicals such as the Modern Review, New Masses, Asia, New Republic, and Nation.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Julia D]

Ive been making my way through a list of novels broadly characterized as "proletarian literature". "proletarian" because of the subject matter, the authors working-class origin, the authors communist political affiliation, or some combination of the three. Daughter of Earth hits all three and is one of the best i've read yet.

This semi-autobiographical novel traces the life of an American woman from her dirt poor early childhood on a homestead in the American west, to the dispossession and proletarianization of her family and their their desperate search for stability and prosperity. It’s a story of alienation and political awakening, first through her raw juvenile indignation at the miserable lives of the women around her, to her discovery of socialism and eventually anti-imperialism, after meeting a circle of anti-colonial Indian nationalists in New York City during the first world war.

If you enjoyed the Golden Notebook or anything else by doris lessing you will love this. The golden notebook came to my mind multiples times when i was reading this, not just because they deal with broadly similar themes but because it shares the same rich characterization and follows a broadly similar structure of psychological shifts in the narrative style as the character matures. Reading this you will find it amazing that it was written in the 20s, it really feels as if it was a historical novel written at the earliest in the 1960s, mainly because of the strikingly modern semi-Freudian psychological dealings as well as its fraught sexual politics. It’s no wonder that my copy is a recent reprint by a nyc based feminist press, It’s a great novel all around and I’m glad they’ve helped keep it in print (and with a more appropriately modern cover than the one shown on goodreads to boot).

[Sarah Riley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daughter of Earth is a can't-put-down story of American life for a woman at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Like Grapes of Wrath, it is both a period piece, and a tale that tells us something of humanity we grow from hearing. I though of my grandmother's life in farming & mining communities in the developing West as Agnes recounts the years of her childhood and upbringing. This book is also a look at Women's Rights, and the beginning of what Agnes Smedley is mostly known for, her commitment to human rights and her involvement in social Revolutions. This reads as historical fiction, but is largely autobiographical. I loved it.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5

Chato was intellectual and witty, but he impressed me as a somewhat crafty individual. He called himself an anarchist, though it was evident that it was Hindu nationalism to which he had devoted himself entirely.

-Emma Goldman, 'Living My Life'

Take the Socialists, for instance. Many of them are narrow-visioned. When we Indians speak of the freedom of India, they say we are nationalists. I have had English Socialists tell me that they do not intend to turn the Indian working class over to the upper classes of India to exploit. That reasoning but hides imperialism, more deadly than that which exists today, for it wears the garb of ethics. For they cannot rule our country, even if they call themselves Socialists, without the machinery of imperialism. Sometimes I think the struggle is not just a struggle against the Capitalist system, but of all Asia against the western world.

-Sardarji Ranjit Singh in the novel, possibly Manabendra Nath (M.N.) Roy

There are days when I wish the whole book publishing industry choked on its own sustained vomit of advertisements and 'modern classics' and new! new! new! long enough for me to make my way through the annals of the battered paperback and the promising name in peace. It would dramatically slow the subliminal calcification suffered by my brain that a book like this agonizingly cracks its way through: a pro-Indian, anti-imperialism piece of US lit published all the way back in 1929. There's also Marxism, the combating of antiblackness, and sex-positive feminism, but, to put it frankly, it's so much easier to run into each of those on their own in places of far more renown than Smedley's autobiographical novel. I suppose that's why I didn't adhere to what apparently is the general consensus of the first half of this work being more interesting and/or going more smoothly the second: it was Smedley's Indian husband and revolutionary work in China that drew me to her, and her life until then was something I had seen in other bildungsromans concerned with white women. So, when this novel's main character came upon and then participated in a house filled with Indian intellectuals, a part of me woke up; just as another part did when the University of California expelled her for association with socialism and women's rights' groups; or another part did when Emma Goldman was mentioned; or another part when political groups of all sorts, but especially self-termed leftists, wove enough rope to hang themselves with. Such a waking up requires effort, especially when dealing with a narrative that contains descriptions of rape, which is likely why, in conjunction with exterior events, I'm having such a hard time gathering my thoughts for this review. A good thing, then, that I saved the finishing of this work for a day when I would have little on my hands other than time.

"Did they tell you they were bums, too? They are! I.W.W. means 'I Won't Work.' I'll bet they didn't tell you that!"
"Well, if it means that, why don't rich men belong to it?—they don't work."

[The Tombs jail] is the shadow of Wall Street, for it is the detaining place for those who are poor and commit crimes because they are poor.

"Deserve" is the word which the possessors use as a weapon against those they dispossess.

People keep boiling the question down to fascism and communism and "normal" when, what would those ideological systems be like if imperialism and the ability to sell anything, anyone, and all hadn't joined forces so many centuries ago? It's tedious to pretend that those who die from lack of food, lack of shelter, lack of health insurance, and lack of money cannot be added to death counts as swiftly as are the totals for famines and genocides drawn up under the dictatorships that Neo-Euro powers deem anathema at any given moment. Smedley, named Rogers in this thinly veiled autobiography that she wrote as part of her psychological treatment, explicitly lays out the record of her homeland chewing up her mother, brothers, sister, father, aunt, and community, people whose whiteness could not protect them from US capitalism and social Darwinists all the way back before World War I. Her glorified 'proletarian' origins keep her on the knife-edge of self-reflexive criticality and intelligentsia indoctrination, and much as she doesn't lose herself to overwhelming compassionate subservience to the woes of her ignorant fathers and brothers, so to does she refuse to follow those highfalutin, self-proclaimed owners of the worker's revolution. The resulting freedom is as inspiring in its muscular chains of thought as it is agonizing in its continued isolation, ultimately leading to a conclusion where flight is once again favored over resolution or peace. Some would term such fiction "radicalization", others a "political awakening": all I know is, were Smedley alive today, many who profess to be by the side of the fictional heroine would say that she promotes fascism through her disdain for voting and favor of active building of solidarity.

Karin and Knut heard my story and laughed at my unhappiness; school did not necessarily teach one anything, they held—often it perverted and destroyed intelligence. But their words carried no meaning to me...their feet were planted firmly on sound knowledge, and from the heights they could afford to be critical.

It was but chance that I was born white and not black; free and not slave; I believed that a truth is a truth only when it covers the generality, and not just me.
Professors could silence me then; they had figures, diagrams, maps, books. Protest was my only reply. I was learning that books and diagrams can be evil things if they deaden the mind of man and make him blink or cynical before subjection of any kind.

In any given human population, life whittles down the number of those capable of writing a sustained narrative; then come the qualifiers, the lucky breaks, who is written about in the chronological timelines and who is not, until the section for 'rediscovered classics' has acquired so much bloat that you could almost imagine a cult of publishers forming a century ago just for the sake of artificially burying promising works of suspect demographical origin in the hopes of generating a profit in their corporation's far flung future. The last is absurd, of course, but part of the power of modern education systems is how much energy must be spent connecting the dots and filling in the blanks and wiping away the filth set up by decades of instruction that tell you India existed in the US then, white women were involved in non-white fights against white imperialism there, it was always a white dude that first said this and this and this and this in a way worth remembering, yadda, yadda, yadda. I'm sure a number of reviewers ave mewled and puked about Smedley's lack of mother sense, much as the GRAmazon author description and Wikipedia page obsesses over the men she slept with at the expensive of coverage of her international work for various revolutions. My only consolation is that I'm no longer in the position to be tempted to do cataloging work for a hoarding dragon ripe for the slaying, else I'd likely feel conflicted when the eviction of potentially 40 million people rolls out in my country over the next month or so and consequences (and possibly some other things) begin to roll. People watch in horror as activists are snatched off the streets by unmarked cars, as if US government agents hadn't kidnapped anti-imperialists and held without legal recourse all throughout World War I. The most accessible descriptions of this particular period of Smedley's life is filled with the usual pathos-triggering phrases of 'espionage', 'anti-allied propaganda', and 'Hindu-German conspiracy': imagine if, instead of the American Revolution, we had the 'France-British America conspiracy' instead. All in all, Smedley's worth further exploration, and I'll be picking up more of her writing and biographical material of repute whenever the opportunity arises. Bigotry is as much as saying, look, your kind didn't interact with their kind until such and such a date, and you can't expect so much humanization to have occurred between now and then. Well, white women of the US, the bar for humanizing India and everyone and everything related to that country started back in the 1910s: I expected better by now.

During this time I met many liberals...I remember them as one long lecture on what I should do or not do, what I should have done or not have done while under arrest...I know they carry the key to personal happiness—for they can adjust their brains and actions to any situation.

They brought me face to face with many bitter truths—with the attitude of most upper-class Indians toward women, sex and the working class. The Americans were just as primitive, I replied; the American, like the Indian, regarded a woman as a physical being who became "ruined" by sex experience, whereas men became men by the same experience. The Indians regarded the working class as congenitally inferior; the American thought that any man worth anything would "work himself up," and that if he did not, it was his own fault; he did not stop to consider that to "work yourself up" you had to stand on somebody's back, and somebody had to be kept in subjection for this purpose.

Freedom is higher than love. At least today. Perhaps one day the two will be one.

[Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an amazing book, but anti-Socialist rhetoric makes it easy to see why there are very few editions in print, and I'd never heard about it. It's billed as fiction, but what is clear is that it is actually autobiographical. When I was not too far into it I remarked to a friend that Smedley would get along well with Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Margaret Sanger -- then toward the end I found Margaret Sanger (unnamed) mentioned. So, yes, I was right. What I am taking away from this is that I personally believe everyone should read this because it will force a mirror in front of everyone -- now -- to ask ourselves what has changed in our culture, what is the same, what has improved, and what is worse. This is not a book I could ever sell to most of the people I know because they are too historically shallow to "get it." I guess maybe if you liked (and "got") Cider House Rules, you would "get" this book. Otherwise I fear people would just think of it as propaganda or whining. It deserves to be assigned reading, but it is something I would actually be scared to death to assign in such a conservative area for fear of the backlash. That is an interesting conflict to have rattling around in my head. Because so much of who I am to the core lives with "to hell with the Establishment" because they have rejected me and made MY life hell for so long. However, when it is "the Establishment" who decides if you get to work, well, then you think about things a little bit differently.

Reading Smedley's words, one point she raises over and over and over again is her will to be able to work for her own living, even when it is very unacceptable to do so (and there aren't a lot of career options open to her -- at some points she is even railing that she would prefer prostitution to marriage...can you see why this would not play well in a conservative crowd, especially when a lot of me agrees with her position?). There was a place -- my parents' generation -- where women had a choice. Now I sit here, scrapping through life, in the exact opposite position of Smedley -- I have no choice but to work. And while I want my life to have use and meaning, I am just as angry and frustrated for the lack of choice as she was. She wants what I have, but in the interim society's whole perspective on marriage has changed so dramatically. And what the world is telling me is that I can't have both career or family, there must be a choice between the two, and that choice is rapidly being taken away from me.

So my thoughts to Smedley are that the inverse is not better, and poverty is still a prison. "All animals are created equal. Pigs are more equal." -- that's exactly right. I know that the nasty 19th c. idea of Social Darwinism that people who are poor deserve to be poor still remains (though this is something the exploiting European colonial powers held forever).

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Agnes Smedley wrote only one novel, she wrote this in the late 1920s before going to China while living in Germany. The book is described as “autobiographical” and most people seem to agree that the events in the book mirror her own life. The book tells the story of a young girl growing up very poor in America at the turn of the century. Normally I’m not a big fan of books about poor Americans, I can’t stand Steinbeck, but I found I really enjoyed this one. I think part of the reason was that the characters came across as real people, they were flawed and complicated and not just there to be archetypes. The main character, Marie, was horrified by the way women were treated in her life and community. One of the most surprising things in this book was her open discussion of having two abortions and her tremendous fear of childbirth and control by men. It was heartbreaking to read of her trying to commit suicide when she discovered that she was pregnant. It made me really appreciate how much birth control has changed the lives of women, before we really didn’t have much of a choice about how to live. It was a book about struggle, a struggle to survive and a struggle to grow. I felt that Smedley’s writing reflected the life journey of her main character and that the style improved as the character grew up and matured. What was interesting was her move towards helping the Indians in their struggle for independence from the British. It was interesting to see an underground movement in America for a change. The rape and subsequent imprisonment of Marie was just terribly sad and hard to believe that this was 20th century America. When reading Agnes Smedley’s report of life in China during the Second World War and the civil war, I was always amazed at what she was able to endure and how strongly she was able to sympathise with the suffering around her. Having read this book I think I start to realise that there really wasn’t that much of a difference between her lives. I also think I may have to give up my idea of her being a lesbian. She definitely seemed to have a few close women friends, but I find it hard to believe that she could have been as open as honest about her relationship with men, and her attitudes towards everything else, and not be able to admit any of that. But an incredible read. One I would definitely recommend to anyone interested in gender issues or women’s history.

[Velvetink · Rating 4 out of 5]

Agnes Smedley, (February 23, 1892 – 6 May 1950) was an American journalist and writer known for her chronicling of the Chinese revolution. The book focus is on her time in China.

She embraced and advocated various issues including women's rights, Indian independence, birth control, and China's Communist Revolution. Smedley authored eight books; she wrote articles in many periodicals such as Asia, The New Republic, Nation, Vogue, and Life. A website on Smedley states, "Influenced by her impoverished childhood Agnes Smedley was an advocate for women, children, peasants and liberation for the oppressed."

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely insane that this book takes place largely in the 1890s-1910s. It rings so true to the modern female experience. Smedley deserves a place among the high literary fiction writers, and this book deserves a place on everyone’s shelf.

“Wistfulness. Yearning. Desolation.” pg 149
That’s what this novel is about, at its core. Land, poverty, Native American identity, American womanhood, sexuality, religion, government, and hope. This story is all of these things and more, all wrapped in a horrifying and beautiful narrative.

[Heidi Bakk-Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been on my shelf for probably over 20 years. I regret that I didn't read it earlier. It was honestly one of the best autobiographical feminist novels I've ever read. She's a hero, and it's a shame I've never heard of her before now.

[Carine Topal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning, empowering, glorious!

[Marco Damian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una maravilla. Para empezarlo odiando al mundo y acabar odiándolo un poco más. Gente con esperanza en la humanidad, absténgase.

[Ceris Backstrom]

Feminism and class consciousness and revolutionary anti-imperialism and etc etc etc but Damn the love story is what gets me going…..love a heartbreaking love story

[Vitani Days · Rating 5 out of 5]

Un libro potente, di quelli che restano. Scritto in un inglese semplice, pulito, bello, "Daughter of Earth" è la storia di una vita e di una donna, e molto più di questo. Marie Rogers, di discendenza indiana e di origini povere, racconta i suoi primi trent'anni di esistenza mentre osserva il mare del Nord stendersi grigio davanti ai suoi occhi. Quello stesso mare è il fluire ininterrotto dei suoi ricordi. Ricorda la figura del padre, un uomo bello, sognatore, romantico, viaggiatore, storyteller, inconcludente, egoista e a volte violento; una figura con cui sarà in conflitto per buona parte della sua vita, un conflitto che non verrà mai interamente risolto. Una figura in diritto, dall'alto della sua maschilità, di giudicare e dominare. Ricorda la madre, donna bella ma precocemente invecchiata, che ha lavorato tutta la vita come una schiava, succube dei capricci del marito, e che sfogava la sua frustrazione proprio su di lei, la figlia ribelle; quella stessa madre le morirà tra le braccia, fiera di lei che è riuscita a diventare un'insegnante in una piccola scuola di campagna. Ricorda i fratelli, uno morto in miniera e uno quasi disperso in guerra, e le sorelle: Annie, morta di parto, e Beatrice, che ha seguito le sue orme e ha studiato. Infine la zia Helen, prostituta che si fa carico del suo mantenimento a spese del proprio corpo e di una dignità che, comunque, nessuno riuscirà a calpestare. E poi ci sono tante altre esistenze che vanno ad intrecciarsi con quella di Marie, indirizzandola e, in parte, plasmandola. Abbiamo, qui, una serie di temi: il viaggio e più in generale il movimento, il sogno, la povertà, il ruolo della cultura, la dignità della donna in quanto essere umano, la rivoluzione, la guerra, l'amore, il sesso. Ognuno di essi andrebbe esaminato a parte e lungamente. Proviamoci.
Il viaggio: questo romanzo è un movimento continuo, fisico e psichico. Marie ha ereditato dal padre la propensione al viaggio, sia esso materiale o puramente mentale (inventa storie, piccole bugie). Il padre era un uomo che viaggiava in cerca della felicità, in cerca di una vita migliore. Lo stesso farà lei, inseguirà una felicità illusoria che però sarà sempre un po' più in là, sempre un passo avanti a lei, sempre "dove lei non è". Fra treni, città, cavalli, deserti e il vento insuperabile compagno, il romanzo della vita di Marie si concluderà proprio su un nuovo viaggio che comincia.
La povertà: Marie nasce in una famiglia umile, di grandi lavoratori. Inizialmente inseriti in un ambiente di fattorie rurali, Marie e la sua famiglia se ne staccano per inseguire il sogno utopico di felicità del padre, e da lì inizia la loro discesa. Sempre più in basso, finché la madre non muore di consunzione, il padre lascia la famiglia portandosi via i fratelli, e il cuore di Marie si indurisce al punto da pensare che la vita dell'uomo ruota soltanto intorno al denaro, che solo il denaro conta, che lei vivrà per guadagnare denaro. E' una donna dura, feroce, spietata con se stessa e con il mondo, quella che emerge dalle righe. E tuttavia dotata di una sensibilità e di un ardore che celano un cuore tale da poter abbracciare l'universo. Cosa che, nel sogno, accade. Contro la povertà, contro l'ignoranza derivata da una nascita "bassa" e dal connubio "lavoro-sopravvivenza", si staglia la cultura. Una cultura simbolo non solo di innalzamento sociale, ma anche di indipendenza. Conoscere significa avere il potere di ribellarsi, ed è ciò che lei scopre, molto più avanti, grazie all'amicizia con l'indiano Sardarji. Prima ancora che per l'emancipazione della donna, infatti, Marie lotta per una rivoluzione sociale, perché gli oppressi, le caste, i poveri, coloro che "appartengono alla terra", possano in qualche modo liberarsi dalle catene ed emergere. Siano essi i poveri d'America o gli abitanti della lontana India, o le donne. A questo potentissimo elemento sociale, qualcosa in qualche modo di "staccato" dal potere del singolo, va a frapporsi "l'essere umano". In questo caso, la donna. Marie rifugge l'amore, rifugge il sentimento, poiché l'amore è debolezza. Non cerca l'amore di un uomo, ma l'amore di una comunità, di amici, di fratelli. Un amore tanto più intenso quanto più è spirituale, qualcosa con cui il sesso non ha niente a che vedere. Qualcosa che passa dalla società, dall'amicizia, dal legame che nasce dalla comunanza di qualcosa. Non vuole sposarsi, il matrimonio è catena e schiavitù della donna, eppure lo fa due volte: entrambe le volte finisce male, con lei che si prende le colpe e si sacrifica per il bene di persone che ha amato. Perché, nonostante tutto, è un essere umano e prova sentimenti profondissimi. Un odio e un amore totalizzanti, sotto la corazza che s'è creata, sentimenti che diventano lacrime e incubi, universali, che abbracciano il mondo. Lei è figlia della terra, non vuole figli naturali che la leghino ma al contempo è madre del mondo, ha il vento come compagno. Una come lei non può avere radici, non in una società in cui una donna che ha relazioni con più uomini è "distrutta", in cui una donna è un orpello che l'uomo sfoggia, orpello che DEVE essere mantenuto poiché in questo modo l'uomo afferma la propria posizione sociale, un orpello che non può lavorare né essere indipendente. Marie, spirito vagabondo, orgoglioso, testardo e indipendente, col cuore indurito dall'amarezza e dai lutti, ha bisogno di mostrare la sua forza enorme, di mostrare che ce la può fare da sola, che di quel mondo che ama e teme ne sa quanto e più di qualsiasi uomo. Anche se la sua dovesse rivelarsi solo un'eterna fuga verso il sogno di un domani migliore, lei è orgogliosa, determinata a seguire la strada. Spezzata, si rialza e si afferma. Prostrata, riparte. Con le sue sole risorse, col suo essere donna in un mondo maschile, e col suo essere umana - e dunque qualcuno che ama, odia, soffre - con cui fare i conti. Conflitti sempre irrisolti, anche tentando di conciliarli (vedi il matrimonio con Anand, amore e ragione, amore e società, amore e politica), sempre dolorosi, sempre drammaticamente vivi eppure affrontati con un coraggio e una lucidità che lasciano impietriti.
Un romanzo violento, potentissimo come ho già detto, indimenticabile per quello che lascia. Il lettore deve raccogliere il vomito di un'anima, il fiume dell'amarezza, del dolore, della flebile speranza, della lotta spietata per la sopravvivenza dei figli della terra che poi siamo tutti noi. Una lotta che spesso si riduce a un nulla di fatto ma che, almeno, bisogna avere il coraggio di tentare. Perché questo si chiama vivere. Come la povera, meravigliosa madre che, orgogliosa della figlia diventata maestra, finalmente alza la testa e cammina fra la folla dei borghesi coi vestiti smessi e senza scarpe, le mani gonfie e nere per il troppo lavoro e un sorriso di gioia e sfida sul viso invecchiato. Come Marie che, incapace di essere felice, cerca in ogni momento l'altrove e uccide i legami, che ha paura di amare eppure lo fa nel modo totale e splendidamente inconsapevole di un'anima ferita. Un personaggio, una scrittrice, una donna che merita di entrare nella storia della letteratura. Un libro che necessita di spalle solide per essere ingoiato, sopportato, metabolizzato. Un libro indimenticabile, doloroso, che ti scarnifica, e lo stesso un'esperienza che auguro a tutti di fare.
Speriamo, un giorno, in una sua traduzione italiana... e, intanto, io mi inchino ad Agnes Smedley.

[Bea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why have I not read this book earlier? The issues portrayed during the WWI time period are still prevalent today. The reader will find this book a page turner, and feel the anger and sadness of the writer.

Agnes Smedley named herself Marie Rogers in this autobiographical book that discusses abuse, women’s equality, classism, racism, poverty, the institution of marriage, her work with a socialist party and the Indian movement. There a few sections in this novel that stray from her real life (causing the fiction label) which is explained in the Afterword.

[Oh You · Rating 5 out of 5]

How is it possible that I had missed this book, and indeed the author from my collection? I'm a 33 years old and have been interested in feminism for pretty much my entire life. I've read many classic female authors and remained open/engaged to discovering new books by female writers.
This book blew me away. My copy has the introduction in the back of the book so I read this after finishing "Daughter of Earth" only to realise much of the content is autobiographical.
I'm still in a state of shock and awe. How and why Agnes Smedley is such a mystery to UK audiences is a tragedy and something I'm hoping to address on a very small level by passing my lovely copy to as many people as I can. My mother, a retired English Literature teacher with over 30 years of teaching and reading had never heard of Smedley.
Aside from Agnes Smedley's genius as an important and significant female voice in the cannon of literature as a whole this book as a work of (kinda) fiction is breathtaking. I actually want to re-read it again right now and I only finished this 2 days ago. It really is that good!
When I think about the autobiographic nature of this story it makes sense in hindsight. It would be difficult to create a character so fully rounded and unique from imagination alone. The circumstances, story arch and plot is astonishing; it might be my current slightly doomed state of mind but this book gave me so much hope. The strength presented in the heroine, the indomitable force of will is beautiful, aspirational, I could go on...
This is an essential read for anyone of any gender. Agnes Smedley deserves to be far more well known and respected.

[Sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Validation for Daughter of Earth. (Besides my own):

http://www.openculture.com/2013/10/fa...

...Dos Passos, unlike most of the men, names a few women writers, including Agnes Smedley, now revealed to have been a triple agent for the Soviets, the Chinese, and Indian nationalists, “one of the most prolific female spies of the 20th century.” Dos Passos’ commentary on her autobiography Daughter of Earth—which he misremembers as Woman of Earth—is mostly understated: “An uneven but impressive I suppose autobiographical narrative of a young woman’s life in a Western mining camp and in New York.”

[Sally Edsall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an interesting book because it is about a subject and time not otherwise written about (or at least known to me) much in American literature, from a woman's point of view. Lovers of Steinbeck would find much to admire and enjoy here. It is a very ideological work. Smedley, after all, was a champion of the Chinese revolution and friend of Mao Tse-tung.

It is beautifully and evocatively written, so it does not read like a treatise, but it is a fundamentally political work - feminist and socialist. It is about STRENGTH and politics.

If you are interested in rural poverty, and fighting against the odds and limitations in early 20th century America, you will find much in this book. Fans of Maya Angelou may like this too.

[Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book begins with Smedley's character looking out at the cold Danish sea. Such an important book, Willa Cather-Trotsky-Ghandi-Gayle Jones-Dorotea Langue-esque characters. Fictionalized autobiography of early 20th Century radicalism. So important to read, perfect, dramatic narrative of economic realities on families, nations, movements. There probably were rich people described at some point in the novel, I can't remember. I do recall how much she loved the people around her, her poor hardworking parents, dead too soon, the inspired young radicals she meet, the failures, travels - what an incredible human being, really.

[Margaret · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part of Daughter of Earth is the most engaging, describing her life on the American frontier in the last decade of the 19th century in evocative and often lyrical language. The narrative drags a bit when it reaches her time in New York as a university student and political activist, but this fictionalization is not as remarkable as the facts of Agnes Smedley's life. Rather tempted to read a biography of her now, since this work closes when she leaves the US to spend the majority of her life in Europe and then China. She marched with the Red Army! Remarkable woman, especially in her time.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

One does indeed feel these words growing from the earth. A text of struggle, pain, but also of learning and growth. Eternally grateful for Marie Rogers’ life to come into mine at this time (I feel as if I’ve known her all my life), eternally grateful to my dearest Hannah for telling me of the great Agnes Smedley; I find such comfort in her stubbornness yet openness, in this time where I feel listlessness and such malaise. After reading, one feels more ready to tackle whatever direction life forms, and face it with love and struggle

[Willow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is fascinating, a first hand account of growing up in the mining camps and what it meant to survive. She is brutal in her honesty of life and views of wymyn in their societal roles. After adventures and escaping marriage proposals, she is in the city working with foreign freedom fighters from India. Great periferal perspectives of the labor movement, prison conditions, and cultural bullshit.

[Jessica Haider · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Daughter of Earth" is an autobiographical novel about a woman born and raised in poverty in the early 20th century. She rises above the neglect and abuse that she experienced in her childhood and she works hard to make an independent life for herself by seeking out education and work. She rejects the idea that a woman needs a man to make her life complete.

This book was named as one of "500 Great Books by Women".

[Suzanne Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first read this book over 40 years ago. I held on to the paperback for all these years because it was so important to me. It held up well and re-reading it allowed me to appreciate its feminist point of view. The struggles, hard choices, courage, determination and vulnerability of the main character of this semi-autobiographical book were moving and inspiring as well as haunting. I was able to let this book go and release it to be read by someone else to appreciate.

[Amee · Rating 5 out of 5]

the issues are so relevant today... for instance, how power plays out when it comes to gendered violence / abuse within activist or organizer circles.

substitute the incident of rape with any act of sexual / gendered violence commonly deemed a personal, not systemic problem.

this book ends speaking to the costs of that. (autobio fiction based on the author's own experience)

[Angele · Rating 5 out of 5]

amazing autobiography of an outrageously bold and wonderful woman that few people know about. she spent many years politically embedded in china covering the revolution, and was heavily, and at great risk, involved in many political causes in the states, especially women's rights. such an interesting book.

[Denni · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read this quite a long time ago, but it remains one of the most inspirational books I've ever read. I've given it as a present to friends I thought it would appeal to. It has lifted my spirits when I've felt that life's too tough because her life was so much tougher but she kept going, and her achievements were amazing given what she had to overcome throughout her life.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think that I have ever read a book that I hated, then thought was the best book ever written, then thought was OK. But this was it. What was most interesting was that it is based on Smedley's life. The afterword by Paul Lauter was enlightning and helped clear up why I have never heard of Agnes Smedley before. Bottom line: still worth reading- especially for feminists.

[Mara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another "Protest Novels" gem. Wow. My first real introduction to Socialism. I remember reading a passage out loud and bringing myself to uncontrollable tears. Beautifully written, certainly grim, and definitely worth your time.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book was incredibly heavy handed - until you figure out (if you are like me and don't read the written date, only the published date) that this book is largely autobiographical and she was born in 1890. one bad ass broad. truly inspirational.

[Jennifer Tibbetts · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me awhile to get through this one. It was hard to keep track of so I would not recommend reading this book if you like to read just a little before bed. The best part about this book was that it was written in the early 1900's but it's amazing how ahead of her time she was.

[Ona · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stayed up all one night reading this book at Sarah Lawrence College. It was the year of my awakening.