Woman on the Edge of Time

Cover of the 1997 The Women's Press edition.

Cover of the 1987 The Women's Press edition.

Woman on the Edge of Time (sometimes abbreviated WOTEOT) is a 1976 feminist SF novel by Marge Piercy.

The basic premise is that of a Latina woman in roughly present time, caught in a nexus of time: a turning point between a nearly utopian, communitarian, feminist, democratic, non-racist, and environmentally sustainable community; and its opposite, an authoritarian, militaristic, technological and deeply exploitative society in which women are subordinate to men and both sexes are exploited within a hierarchy.

This work is wonderfully well-written, and Piercy skillfully interweaves numerous themes: medical paternalism (towards women and people of color in particular), and technology over-leaping human ethics. Woman on the Edge of Time is an important, inspirational, and thought-provoking work of feminist SF, well-written and absorbing.

Original blurb

Connie Ramos is 37, Mexican-American; a loving mother now labelled a child abuser; an heroically sane woman, now declared insane. Drugged, a helpless inmate of a mental hospital, she is offered only one way back to 'normality' -- participation in a mind-control experiment using electronic implantations in the brain. But Connie is also a 'catcher', a natural telepath with the ability to enter a Utopian future of ecological and social harmony. As the doctors close in Connie realises she has a fight on her hands -- a fight in which a future world and her own life are at stake.

Intertextuality

Thoughts on childbirth drawn from Shulamith Firestone's The Dialectic of Sex

Editions

Print

• May 1976, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 0-394-49986-7. (hardcover) cover by R.D. Scudellari
• Jun 1976, New York: Fawcett Crest, ISBN 0-449-23208-5. (paperback) cover by Jerome Podwil
• May 1979, London: The Women's Press, ISBN 0-7043-3837-8. (paperback) cover by Jane Downer
• Jun 1983, New York: Fawcett, ISBN 0-499-21082-4. (paperback)
• Aug 1983, New York: Fawcett, ISBN 0-449-20485-5. (paperback)
• Jan 1984, London: The Women's Press, ISBN 0-7043-3837-8. (paperback)
• Nov 1985, New York: Fawcett, ISBN 0-499-21082-0. (paperback) cover by R.B. Kitaj
• May 1987, London: The Women's Press, ISBN 0-7043-3837-8. (paperback) cover by Phyllis Mahon
• Feb 1991, New York: Fawcett, ISBN 0-449-21082-0. (paperback) cover by R.B. Kitaj
• Jul 1997, New York: Ballantine Books, ISBN 0-449-00094-X. (trade paperback)
• Jun 2000, London: The Women's Press, ISBN 0-7043-4656-7. (trade paperback)

Translations

• 1981, Oslo, Norway: Pax Forlag, ISBN 978-825301159-2. (hardcover) transl. by Tone Formo as Kvinne ved tidens rand
• 1982, Stockholm, Sweden: Forum, ISBN 91-37-07703-1. (hardcover) transl. by Hilja-Katarina Wallin as Kvinna vid tidens rand
• 1983, Copenhagen, Denmark: Glydendal, ISBN 8700587346. (paperback) transl. by Arne Herløv Petersen as Kvinde ved tidens rand
• 1986, München, Germany: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, ISBN 3-453-31296-1. (paperback) transl. by Norbert Werner & Hertha Zidek as Die Frau am Abgrund der Zeit
• 1986, Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, ISBN 90-351-0241-X. (trade paperback) transl. by Helen Knopper as Vrouw op het Scherp van de Tijd
• 1990, Milan, Italy: Elèuthera, ISBN 8-8858-6114-8. transl. by Andrea Buzzi as Sul filo del tempo
• 1996, Hamburg/Berlin, Germany: Argument-Verlag, ISBN 3-88619-915-0. (paperback) transl. by Karsta Frank as Die Frau am Abgrund der Zeit
• 1997, Tokyo, Japan: Gakugei Shorin, ISBN 4-8751-7037-8. transl. by Kazuko Kondō as 時を飛翔する女 / Toki o hishōsuru onna
• 2010, Hamburg/Berlin, Germany: Argument-Verlag, ISBN 9783886194865. (hardcover) transl. by Heidi Zerning as Die Frau am Abgrund der Zeit

There was also a version published in Israel by the Second Sex Press

Audio

• 1976, Owensboro, KY: Owensboro Volunteer Recording Unit (cassettes)
• 1985, Victoria Park, WA: Association for the Blind of W.A, read by Frances Dharmalingan (cassettes)
• 1986, Copenhagen, Denmark: Statens Bibliotek og Trykkeri for Blinde, read by Chili Turèll (cassettes)
• 1992, Greenfield MA : Green Island Productions, read by Cynthia Lopez (cassettes)
• 1994, Odense, Denmark: Det Danske Lydbogsforlag, read by Camilla Qvistgaard (cassettes)
• 2006, Princeton, NJ: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (CD-ROM)

Video

• 1986, Columbia, MO: American Audio Prose Library, Marge Piercy reads "Woman on the edge of time", "Braided lives" (excerpts)

E-book

• 1997, New York: Ballantine Books
• 2002, New York: Fawcett Crest. Digital version of first Ballantine Books edition published in 1983.
• 2010, New York: Fawcett, (Kindle)

External links

• Book discussion group on feministSF mailing list (June 2002). BDG Woman on the Edge of Time. bdg.feministsf.net. FeministSF Book Discussion Group. Retrieved on 15 April 2011.