Kate Chopin (1850–1904) was an American author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is now considered by some scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century feminist authors of Southern or Catholic background, such as Zelda Fitzgerald. The Awakening was first published in 1899. Set in New Orleans and on the Louisiana Gulf coast at the end of the 19th century. It is widely seen as a landmark work of early feminism, generating a mixed reaction from contemporary readers and critics. The novel’s blend of realistic narrative, incisive social commentary, and psychological complexity makes The Awakening a precursor of American modernist literature; it prefigures the works of American novelists such as William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway and echoes the works of contemporaries such as Edith Wharton and Henry James. Chopin did not write another novel after The Awakening and had difficulty publishing stories after its release. When she died five years later, she was on her way to being forgotten. In 1960s Per Seyersted, a Norwegian literary scholar rediscovered Chopin, leading The Awakening to be remembered as the feminist fiction it is today.