More women authors

Over seventy per cent of the authors on my list are male and I think this is a flaw in the list. I don't believe in quotas and I am not going to deliberately make the list fifty-fifty as the books have to make it on their own merits. However, there is the counter argument that my list is based largely on The Canon - mainly American men writing literary fiction in mid twentieth century. It's hard to say whether the lack of female authors is because of a lack of great output or because they do not get the recognition that the male writers do - in the same way that genre or children's writing is often marginalised even when it's great.

I am trying to think whether I have missed out anyone essential and so far I have come up with Carol Shields with The Stone Diaries and Anne Tyler with Breathing Lessons (which both won the Pulitzer prize). I would be interested to know what my readers think - should these two be added and if so who would we remove? And are there any other glaring omissions from the list?

Keep in mind the boundaries of the list - the books must be published between 1900 and 1999, must be written originally in English (no translations) and only novels are eligible.