Kavan was always a dark writer, a very dark writer. Like Kafka, she writes of prisons with no bars, of paranoiac nightmares, of living in a halfway world between hell and reality. First published sixty years ago (Doubleday did it in the U.S. in 1946), Asylum Piece charts the descent of the narrator from the onset of neurosis to final incarceration at a Swiss clinic. This collection of interlinked and largely autobiographical stories (Kavan suffered numerous breakdowns and was a life-long heroin addict) evokes the sense of paranoia and persecution found in The Trial, though her deeply personal, restrained, and almost foreign-accented style has no true model. The same characters who recur throughout-the protagonist's unhelpful advisor,"" the friend/lover who abandons her at the clinic, and an assortment of deluded companions-are sketched without a trace of the rage, self-pity, or sentiment that have marked more recent accounts of mental instability.
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Book Description
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About the Author
Anna Kavan was one of the greatest unsung enigmas in 20th-century British literature. Born Helen Ferguson, a fraught childhood and two failed marriages led her to change her name to that of one of her characters. Despite struggling with mental illness and heroin addiction for most of her life, she was still able to write fiction that was as powerful and memorable as any English female writer of the last 150 years.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poor Anna,
This review is from: Asylum Piece (Peter Owen Modern Classics) (Paperback)
Dearest Anna,
I finished your book about madness, about inner poverty, about redemption and the mystical obsession with death. There's a word to describe books such as these, but I fail to remember that word. Oh well, my review is nothing more than a large applause sign. Did you live this, or are you dreaming it all? I suppose that doesn't matter. I'm writing to say, thank you. Ms. Kavan, I understand.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
behind these walls,
By "moonwave" (Philippines) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Asylum Piece and Other Stories (Paperback)
I found this book in a lowly second-hand bookstore and it cost 50 pesos (less than 2 cents) back in 95 and found more than a bargain--a real find and a gem of a book. I've reread the book countless times and plugged friends to read it at the cost of our friendship. These are stories that will haunt you to go back and search for words you thought were there but were really between the lines and beneath the pages. These are evocations of both retchedness and humanity. I've never heard of Anna Kavan or any of her work, and people still raise eyebrows when I mention her name as one of my favorites. But this book will surely flee with me in case of a fire breakout. Nobody can take it away from me, here that? You can even ask my friend Chati.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
behind these walls,
By "moonwave" (Philippines) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Asylum Piece and Other Stories (Paperback)
I found this book in a lowly second-hand bookstore and it cost 50 pesos (less than 2 cents) back in 95 and found more than a bargain--a real find and a gem of a book. I've reread the book countless times and plugged friends to read it at the cost of our friendship. These are stories that will haunt you to go back and search for words you thought were there but were really between the lines and beneath the pages. These are evocations of both retchedness and humanity. I've never heard of Anna Kavan or any of her work, and people still raise eyebrows when I mention her name as one of my favorites. But this book will surely flee with me in case of a fire breakout. Nobody can take it away from me, here that? You can even ask my friend Chati.
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