Feminist icon Andrea Dworkin dies in US

Feminist author Andrea Dworkin has died at her home in Washington at the age of 58.

Feminist author Andrea Dworkin has died at her home in Washington at the age of 58.

Ms Dworkin was best known for her writing on pornography and violence against women.

She viewed pornography as a civil rights violation against women and helped draft a 1983 law in Indianapolis that allowed women to sue producers and distributors of pornography in civil court.

The law was overturned by a federal appeals court in 1985 but was later upheld by the US Supreme Court.

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Ms Dworkin published more than a dozen books in a writing career that began in 1974 with Woman Hating: A Radical Look at Sexuality.

Ms Dworkin's memoir, Heartbreak: The Political Memoir of a Feminist Militant, was published in 2002.

Despite her public persona as radical feminist, Ms Dworkin had a side that was not often seen, said Elaine Markson, her agent of 30 years.

"Some in the media liked to picture her as tough and hard and difficult but she was soft and with a lovely voice and a good sense of humor," Ms Markson said. "She'd had knee surgery and she seemed not to have recovered very well from the surgery. She was rather frail of late," Ms Markson said.

Born in Camden, New Jersey, Ms Dworkin, who died on Saturday of unspecified causes, is survived by her husband John Stoltenberg, also a feminist activist and author.