Dorothy Allison, the lesbian feminist author who stunned the literary world with her brutal, bestselling novel Bastard Out of Carolina, has died at 75, the New York Times reports.

Allison was born in South Carolina to a single teenage mother; her mother later married a man who sexually abused Allison for years, starting when she was 5. She was educated at Florida Presbyterian College and the New School for Social Research, where she studied anthropology.

She published her first book, the poetry collection The Women Who Hate Me, in 1983, and followed that up five years later with a short story collection, Trash, which won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction.

In 1992, she published Bastard Out of Carolina, which follows Ruth Anne “Bone” Boatwright, a girl who is abused by her stepfather. The novel was a hit with critics and became a bestseller; it was adapted into a 1996 film directed by Anjelica Huston and starring Jena Malone, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ron Eldard, and Lyle Lovett.

Her other books include the nonfiction title Skin: Talking About Sex, Class & Literature, which explored being “queer in a world that hates queers,”the memoir Two or Three Things I Know for Sure, and the novel Cavedweller.

Allison’s admirers remembered her on social media. On the platform X, novelist Kristen Arnett wrote, “dorothy allison! the writer who made me want to be a writer - i owe everything i am as an artist to you and your work and your incredible life. you will be deeply missed.”

And author Roxanna Asgarian posted, “Rest in peace, Dorothy Allison, who wrote for the wounded children.”

Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.