Susan Griffin, who has died aged 82, was an author, playwright and feminist whose 1978 book Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her (1978), which explored the interconnectedness of the destruction of the planet, sexism and racism, is credited with launching ecofeminism in the US. Characterised by Griffin as an “extended prose-poem”, the book remains the manifesto of the movement today and has sold more than 100,000 copies.

The author of 21 titles across multiple genres – essays, poetry, memoir and political philosophy – Griffin described her work as “drawing connections between the destruction of nature, the diminishment of women and racism, and tracing the causes of war to denial in both private and public life.”

A veteran of the 1960s free speech movement at the University of California, Berkeley, she developed the theory that cultural, environmental and sexual violence all emerge from the same social fabric. This theory became mainstream in the US feminist movement.

Griffin, a Pulitzer prize finalist, made unconventional links between seemingly disparate subjects; perhaps this was because she had such an eclectic career, having worked as a waiter, a house painter and an artist’s model as well as a creative writing tutor.

I once heard her speak at a literary festival in Berkeley. In her gentle, melodic tone, she recounted her involvement in the civil rights movement, explaining that seeing and understanding the pain of African Americans had taught her that empathy is the most valuable trait one can possess.

Griffin’s article Rape: The All-American Crime (1971), published in the leftist magazine Ramparts, was one of the first essays about rape from a feminist perspective, and introduced many of the feminists active in the women’s liberation movement to her work. She also published the book Rape: The Power of Consciousness (1979).

Her next work was Pornography and Silence, Culture’s Revenge Against Nature (1981), in which she tackled the controversial issue of free speech; the book was accused by its critics of being “too angry” rather than philosophical. Her argument was that pornographers and porn consumers use free speech arguments to defend its production and existence, but that porn, because it is built on misogyny, has led to the silencing of women.

She wrote that the roots of pornography lie in a widespread fear of nature, with its imagery that “objectifies and degrades the (usually female) body”. An authentic sexual liberation relies on a connection and reconciliation with nature: “A healing between body in spirit”.

Griffin’s later books explored war, memory and the private lives of public events; A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War (1992) was a finalist for major national prizes, including the Pulitzer, and brought her meditations on trauma and history to a wider audience.

She received a local Emmy award for a televised production of Voices, her 1975 play in verse about the lives of five women. She also published several volumes of poetry, including Bending Home: Selected and New Poems, 1967-1998 (1998) and Unremembered Country (1987).

Alongside her writing she also held university teaching posts, including at UC Berkeley, where she was an adjunct professor, Stanford University, the California Institute of Integral Studies and the University of California.

Born in Los Angeles to Sarah (nee Colvin) and Walden Griffin, a firefighter, she was six years old when her parents divorced. Their marriage had been an unhappy one, partly due to her mother’s alcoholism. In her writings, Griffin recounted how her mother would go out to bars and come home drunk. This led to Susan moving in with relatives and, later, her father.

After he was killed in a road traffic accident when she was 16, she was adopted by the artists Geraldine and Morton Dimondstein, friends of the family who lived in the San Fernando Valley. Growing up in California, Griffin spent much of her time outdoors, and every year she would go to summer camp, pitch a tent and sleep under the stars.

She attended UC Berkeley and then San Francisco State University, where she was awarded a degree in creative writing in 1965 and a master’s in 1973. In 1966 she married John Levy, who was studying linguistics at Berkeley. They had a daughter, Chloe. Soon after the couple divorced, in 1970, Griffin came out as a lesbian.

As a student she was a Marxist, though she later criticised the theory for separating out what she called “the matter” from nature. “My real religion is nature,” she often said.

She was a contributor to Ms magazine, the New York Times Book Review, and numerous other publications. Another work of note is The Book of the Courtesans: A Catalogue of Their Virtues (2001). Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy: On Being an American Citizen (2008) is perhaps particularly relevant today.

Earlier this year Griffin completed a final work on the life of the philanthropist and suffragist Phoebe A Hearst, due to be published in 2027.

She is survived by Chloe and her grandchildren, Sophie and Jasper. 

• Susan Griffin, writer, born 26 January 1943; died 30 September 2025