About
"An intimate look at a woman’s struggle to redefine her life . . . Meulenbelt’s revelations, like Annie Ernaux’s The Years, bear witness to decades of profound change, when women came to see their lives 'on the boundary between the personal and the political.' A candid chronicle of awakening." —Kirkus Reviews
For fans of Tove Ditlevsen, Alba De Cespedes and Annie Ernaux, The Shame Is Over is a cult classic of feminist literature; Anja’s struggle for liberation and equality still resonates loud and clear today, fifty years after the book’s first publication.
Anja’s teenage life is troubled by her marriage to Toni, an Austrian man she met on holidays with her parents, and with whom she has a son, Armin. At nineteen, seeking freedom from abuse and rejecting traditional domestic roles, she leaves her marriage and begins the fight for her own path. Her next decade is shaped by the sexual liberation of the 1970s, as she discovers herself through a series of increasingly dramatic relationships with men, married men, and women all over Europe, all alongside the challenges of single motherhood, and an ever-deepening commitment to feminist and political causes. As her emotional and political consciousness grow, Meulenbelt finds both purpose and community in activism - and begins to redesign what it means to live as an autonomous woman.
First published in 1976, THE SHAME IS OVER blends a raw account of Meulenbelt’s evolution as a mother, lover and political thinker with an incisive portrayal of the struggles women face in their pursuit of autonomy and equality. Meulenbelt doesn’t shy away from the internal tensions of the feminist movement – its contradictions, divisions, and emotional costs. In a haunting final passage, she imagines a dialogue with her younger, insecure self, offering a powerful metaphor for the liberation she seeks not only for herself, but for all women.
Book Details
Format:
Trade Paperback Original
Price:
22 USD / 29.99 CAD
Published: 08/25/2026
ISBN: 9781662603723
Imprint:
Astra House
Page Count: 320
Trim Size: 5-1/2 x 8-1/4
Praise
"An intimate look at a woman’s struggle to redefine her life . . . Meulenbelt’s revelations, like Annie Ernaux’s The Years, bear witness to decades of profound change, when women came to see their lives 'on the boundary between the personal and the political.' A candid chronicle of awakening."—Kirkus Reviews
“In this incredible memoir, Anja Meulenbelt joins Virginia Woolf in killing the Angel in the House, redefining feminism with each axe blow. For what good is so-called feminist literature if women do not tell the whole truth? If we pretend to be anything other than who we are?”
—Molly Roden Winter, author of the New York Times Bestseller MORE: A Memoir of an Open Marriage
“The Shame Is Over is an electrifying reminder—raw, vivid, alive to the touch—of the earliest days of Second Wave feminism. As an historical document, it stands with the best.”
—Vivian Gornick, author of Fierce Attachments and The Odd Woman and the City
“The Shame is Over crackles from beginning to end with complex, vivid life. Writing about her own place at the forefront of the tightly knit but fractured world of socialist and feminist activism in 1970s Europe, Meulenbelt’s narrative voice lays bare her heart and soul, propulsive and fresh, holding nothing back. This book feels as urgent and timely now as it must have felt 50 years ago."
—Kate Christensen, PEN/Faulkner award-winning author of The Great Man and Good Company
All in all: an excellent book in which you recognize so much, but one that at times you simply have to put aside because it is too affecting.
What I admire most, however, is the unsparing honesty with which it is written. Anja Meulenbelt does not make anything seem better than it was; she describes her periods of despair, sorrow, and the temptation to end it all just as openly as the moments of happiness, contentment, and feeling at peace with herself. And it is precisely that honesty which, I believe, is enormously encouraging for readers who, like Anja, are going through a process of growth: who would like many things but do not yet dare, who would like to stand up for themselves more firmly in work, family, and society, but panic at the thought of actually speaking out about what affects them personally.
—Ciska Dresselhuys, Trouw, 13 December 1976
With her personal history, [Anja Meulenbelt] hopes to make other women aware of their own situation. Perhaps men, too, may learn from it why something like feminism exists.
—Het Vrije Volk (1976)
Anja emerges in her book as both strong and vulnerable at once; she paints a picture of herself that may be less recognizable on the outside, but inwardly is strikingly familiar.
—Joke Huisman, NRC Handelsblad (1976)
I believe it is a good book, and I know the author will not consider that a compliment.
—Louis Sinner, Algemeen Handelsblad (1976)
De Schaamte Voorbij is not so much a women’s book as it is human’s book.
—Hans Kok, Dagblad van het Noorden (1976)
“An indispensable portrait of a bygone era, and of a women’s movement that underpins the present one.”
—NRC
“An honest, shameless, and very well-written book about an ordinary woman’s life, with all the crap, misery, and inequality that came with it in the sixties and seventies and actually still does, and unfortunately even more so.”
—Aaf Brandt Corstius, de Volkskrant
“The classic The Shame is Over has been reissued almost fifty years after its publication. And that says enough.”
—Charlotte Remarque, De Groene Amsterdammer