The culture secretary has thrown her weight behind plans to honour a trailblazing female author with a statue in Kent.

Nadine Dorries has praised the campaign aiming to bring a statue of Aphra Behn to Canterbury - as a shortlist of potential sculptors has been revealed.

Known as the first professional female writer in the English language Behn was born in Harbledown, in 1640 and her family moved to the city a few years later, during the Civil War.

Her extraordinary life saw her gain fame as a playwright, poet, novelist and spy, before she died at the age of 48 and was laid to rest at Westminster Abbey.

Canterbury charity A is for Aphra was established last year with the ambition of seeing Behn “at last celebrated and memorialised” with a bronze effigy in her home city.

The charity is working on the project with The Canterbury Commemoration Society.

The government's culture secretary Nadine Dorries, herself a published author, has now praised the project saying: “Aphra Behn paved the way for female writers everywhere - myself included.

"She had the guts to speak her mind, and the daring to write about subjects traditionally considered ‘male only’.

“She broke new territory for us all, and any woman looking to make their profession in the world of writing owes her a debt of gratitude.”

A is for Aphra has unveiled its shortlist of four sculptors, each of whom has put forward a design for the statue which they hope to make a reality.

Each of the shortlisted artists will now make a bronze maquette - a smaller preliminary model - of their design.

On A for Aphra's website, the charity says: "These will be toured around key Behn-related places in June and July 2022.

"The public will be able to cast votes for their favourite statue at this point, both in person and online."

Among shortlisted artists is Victoria Atkinson, a sculptor based on the Kent-Sussex border whose statue of Rudyard Kipling stands in the East Sussex village of Burwash where he lived.

American sculptor and poet Meredith Bergmann, whose Women's Rights Pioneers Monument was unveiled in Central Park, New York, in 2020, is also in the shortlist.

So too is former president of the Royal British Society of Sculptors, Maurice Blik; alongside fellow of the Royal Society of Arts Christine Charlesworth, who recently produced a sculpture of suffragette Emily Wilding Davison for the centre of Epsom and a life-size effigy of Greta Thurnberg for Winchester University.

A is for Aphra must raise about £125,000 to fund the statue.

It has so far raised just over £9,300, and is continuing to appeal for donations.

Charlotte Cornell, a local writer, poet and PhD student at the University of Kent, who is leading the statue project said: "Aphra deserves recognition, not just because she was the first professional woman writer, but because she was an excellent writer. Aphra rivals Dryden, Etheredge and Sheridan for wit in her brilliant plays and for the sheer amount of work she produced.

"Regarding the statue, this shouldn’t be seen as a feminist occupation of a public space; instead, it is a correction of a terrible injustice.

"Women across centuries have well-deserved places being commemorated in the public sphere, yet for too long it has denied them. The Aphra network is part of a UK-wide movement called Visible Women.

"We are putting statues up across the country to those women neglected by a history that has mainly been recorded by men. If you achieve something fantastic, you should be celebrated: hopefully nowadays we are excited about commemorating our daughters just as much as our sons.’

Rosie Duffield, MP for Canterbury, was involved in the shortlisting process. She said:‘It was almost impossible to choose. We had young Aphras, older Aphras, Aphras wearing male clothing, Aphras standing on piles of books, Aphras with words illuminated through huge skirts, designs that had Aphra writing at desks or composing verse as she walked.

"With so many designs, we had to narrow it down the old-fashioned way - democratically. In the end, we decided on the top 4 by each voting for our 10 favourites and then arguing the case for those we chose. "I’m thrilled that such an inspirational woman came from Canterbury. We need to make up for three centuries of neglect, by making a lot of noise about her.’

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