Who Are You? (Peter Owen Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Anna Kavan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 2002 | Series: Peter Owen Modern Classic

First published in 1963, cult writer Anna Kavan's unheralded tale of a calamitous army marriage in the tropics unfolds in a vaguely post-war colonial setting. Narrated by the girl,"" her story plunges into a claustrophobic nightmare, played out twice, as she tells us about her husband, ""Mr. Dog Head,"" a heavy drinker who rapes her and kills rats with his tennis racket. Told against a background of intense heat and malevolent servants, the book seems virtually soaked in a Sylvia Plath-like surreal sense of youthful alienation.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"To write about this finely economical book in any terms other than its own is cruelly to distort the near-perfection of the original text. There is a vision here which dismays."  —Guardian

"We are indebted to Peter Owen for reissuing Anna Kavan’s work . . . Who Are You? is accomplished and complete . . . so fully imagined, so finely described in spare, effective prose, that it is easy to suspend disbelief."  —Daily Telegraph

"Lots of fun to read, sprouts with a macabre imagination and is, no question, a classic."  —Sunday Telegraph

About the Author

Anna Kavan was one of the greatest unsung enigmas in 20th-century British literature. Born as Helen Ferguson, who lived 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.

Product Details

• Paperback: 118 pages
• Publisher: Peter Owen Ltd; Paperback Ed edition (August 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0720611504
• ISBN-13: 978-0720611502
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,242,903 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Kavan is a breathtaking writer, March 27, 2011

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Publicagent "Publicagent" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who Are You? (Peter Owen Modern Classics) (Paperback)

This is my first Anna Kavan novel. Her writing is fabulous. She really swept me away with her precise and poetical language. Her characters are also drawn out impressively well. There are many moments of solitude that she paints in such a way to make you feel like you are there. This novel in particular is about a young woman wishing that she could break away from her husband. It's not a topic that I would choose to read, but Kavan makes it feel like anyone stilted in their quest for freedom can relate.

There are refrains of birds chanting, "Who are you? Who are you?" There is the setting of a remote house in a jungle-like area. There are Indian servants. And there is a bastard of a husband who can't take it because his young wife has no interest in him at all. Though she does take interest in a vistor, who makes her feel something toward someone for the first time.

The chapters build up nicely, but something very bizarre happens toward the final fourth of the book. The book seems like it could have ended, but then it keeps going, and the visitor returns as if he never left even though he has been completely out of the picture for a while. Then events replay themselves, or so it appears. It seems that the book is retelling itself, although in an arguably less interesting way. It got to the point where I wondered if the publishers erred and put in a previous draft of the later chapters after the book was supposed to have actually ended. Or there is something going on that I was not aware of.

All in all, Anna Kavan does not disappoint. I am eager to read other of her works.