Who are You? by Anna Kavan

Who are You? by Anna Kavan

Depicting the hopeless, emotional polarity of a young couple, this novel follows their doomed marriage spent in a remote, tropical hell. She--described only as the girl--is young, sophisticated and sensitive. He, Mr. Dog-Head, is an unreconstructed thug and heavy drinker who rapes his wife, otherwise passing his time bludgeoning rats with a tennis racket. Together with a visiting stranger, Suede Boots--who urges the woman to escape until he is banished by her husband--these characters live through the same situations twice. Their identities are equally real--or unreal--in each case. With slight variation in the background and the novel's atmosphere, neither the outcome nor the characters themselves are quite the same the second time. The constant question of the jungle brain-lever bird remains unanswered: who are you?

Anna Kavan (1901-1968), born Helen Emily Woods, was a British writer and painter. She attended the London Central School of Arts and Crafts during the 1920s, which was also the period in which her heroin use, which continued intermittently until her death, began. In 1940, she began publishing under Anna Kavan, the name of one of her fictional characters. During this period her writing became darker and more experimental, and her first collection of stories Asylum Piece was well received. She went on to work as a secretary at the literary journal Horizon, where she also contributed stories, articles, and reviews. She became reclusive, struggling with poor health and difficulty in publishing, until 1967, when her best-known novel Ice was published. Kavan died of heart failure the following year.

Victoria Walker is the chair of the Anna Kavan Society. She teaches in the English Department at Queen Mary, University of London.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780720611502
ISBN 10	0720611504
Title	Who are You?
Author	Anna Kavan
Series	Peter Owen Modern Classic
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Peter Owen Publishers
Year published	2001-11-14
Number of pages	200
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.