When Nona Fernández delved into Chilean history in her novels, the reaction was “Why aren’t you writing about bulemia?” she says. Columbia writer Laura Restrepo, whose novel Leopard in the Sun was about violence between feuding drug lords, says a publisher told her she wrote like a man. “Misogyny is slow to leave the world of letters,” say seven authors – but this year, after decades, things seem to be changing.