Kate Chopin: A Literary LifeKate Chopin, known in her lifetime as a writer of stories set in the French settled regions of Louisiana and today as the author of THE AWAKENING, has been viewed as a woman who, until she wrote her final novel, catered to the taste for regional fiction and led a conventional domestic life. In this study, Nancy A. Walker demonstrates that Chopin was an astute literary professional who consciously crafted an acceptable public identity while she pursued