London - The novelist Fay Weldon (66) has provoked outrage by claiming rape "isn't the worst thing that can happen to a woman". The statement prompted immediate condemnation from women's groups.
The writer is famous for her rows with the sisterhood, usually for recent fictional works which have tended to mock the women's movement. Her most famous novel, The Lives and Loves of a She-Devil, recounted a wronged woman's transformation into a vengeful harpy. Affliction, published in 1994, was a partly autobiographical account of a marriage break-up.
