Rhys, Jean

AbstractJean Rhys (1890–1979) was born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams in Roseau, Dominica. Although she moved to England in 1908 and spent the rest of her life in Europe, her Caribbean origins informed much of her writing as well as its critical reception. Most notably, her 1966 novelWide Sargasso Seacatapulted Rhys to fame and has become a fixture of postcolonial reading lists. The four novels and three collections of short stories that Rhys wrote prior toWide Sargasso Sea, and mostly before 1939, are less well‐known but equally important artistic achievements that make Rhys a foremost modernist as well as postcolonial author. Rhys's explorations of race, class, gender, colonial relations, psychological dynamics, affective states, and aesthetics continue to inspire new scholarly directions.