Anna 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.

關於這個作者

她出生於cannes. France. 差不多1901年左右

在欧洲不同城市和加洲长大，

又在英格兰完成她的学业。

和第一个丈夫结婚后搬去缅甸。

在缅甸期间开始她的写作。

这是她的第一本也是最原始的一本小说。

她的语言优美，简洁，却因为观点超越了当时的社会而不被认同。

她长期服用海洛因， 所以常常有精神问题，

这些事实也反映在她的故事中。

她死于，心脏病，1968年。