![]() Kavan knew much from the painful and passionate events that punctuated her life. In Kavan’s last novel, Ice, the apocalypse isn’t ecological - it is psychosocial, a premonition of the emotional actions that lead to a world’s end. More and more, the world as we know it is ending to some degree, it looks like this is our fault. This revival is well-timed Kavan’s unflinching vision still has great power. ![]() ![]() We now have Penguin Classics’ new edition of Ice. The first Anna Kavan Symposium was held at the Institute of English Studies in London in 2014 and, in 2017, a Kavan-dedicated special issue of the journal Women: A Cultural Review followed. Today, the revival of interest in Anna Kavan is ongoing. Sometimes referred to as “Kafka’s sister”, Kavan charted a remarkable journey throughout her well-travelled and richly experienced life - which included three failed attempts at suicide, two failed attempts at marriage, and a series of novels, short stories, and paintings that grapple with identity and violence. ![]() Why haven’t you heard of Anna Kavan? Born in Cannes in 1901 as Helen Woods, she published a number of books under the names Helen Ferguson, taken from her then-divorced first husband, and Anna Kavan, adopted from a character in her own 1930 novel, Let Me Alone. ![]()
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