Laurie Halse Anderson, the author of “Speak,” a 1999 novel about a teenage girl traumatized by rape, did not initially see her book as a piece of activism. After it was published, Ms. Anderson visited schools to discuss the story and its main character, Melinda, a freshman who struggles to verbalize her pain after she is raped by an upperclassman at her first high school party. Early on, Ms. Anderson spoke about the book as a piece of literature rather than a lesson on rape culture. But then the students started asking questions, like, “Did this happen to you?”It had. She had not spoken about it for 25 years, until she wrote the book.

Source: New York Times September 12, 2018 16:31 UTC