Kate Chopin, was born Katherine O'Flaherty in St. Louis on Feburary8,1851, of a prosperous Irish-born merchant father and an aristocratic Creole mother. She studied piano, wrote poetry, and read Dickens, Austen, Goethe, de Stael, and the Brontes. Despite her free spirit--she was once nicknamed the "littlest rebel" for yanking down a Union flag--Kate grew to be a leading social belle, admired for her wit and beauty.

In 1870 she married Oscar Chopin. Matrimony did not quell her independence; she dressed unconventionally, took long unchaperoned walks, and smoked cigarettes. In their twelve years of married life, she bore six children, and upon Oscar's sudden death in 1882 she took over the management of the Chopin family plantation in Natchitoches, Louisana. She turned seriously to writing shortly thereafter, publishing stories in Vogue and Atlantic Monthly. She wrote a novel, At Fault(1890), Bayou Folk, a collection of stories(1894), A Night in Acadie, a second collection (1897), and her masterpiece The Awakening(1899), which aroused a national scandal for its "indecency." Banned by libraries, it even prevented her admission into the St. Louis Fine Arts Club--even though Kate Chopin was famous for her literary salon, which attracted distinguished artists and writers from all over the country.

Always sensitive to criticism, Chopin was devastated by the furor that surrounded the publication of The Awakening, and its harsh reception ultimately caused her to stop writing. When she died in 1904, she had been denied the recognition she desperately wanted and richly deserved.

《觉醒》肖班以主人公艾德娜·庞特里耶的自我意识和性意识的觉醒为主题，大胆而又直率地从深层次探索了已婚女性的内心世界。这在当时的社会背景下无疑是惊世骇俗之举。《觉醒》被尊为美国妇女文学最早的代表性作品，成为女性文学的经典。《觉醒》为纯正的英语版本。