Anna Kavan

Anna Kavan (1901-1968) began her career writing under her married name Helen Ferguson. It was only after a nervous breakdown that she became Anna Kavan, the protagonist of her 1930 novel Let Me Alone , with an outwardly different persona and new literary style. Much of her life remains an enigma. Kavan suffered periodic bouts of mental illness and long-term drug addiction--she had become addicted to heroin in the 1920s and continued to use it throughout her life--and these facets of her life...See more

Anna Kavan (1901-1968) began her career writing under her married name Helen Ferguson. It was only after a nervous breakdown that she became Anna Kavan, the protagonist of her 1930 novel Let Me Alone , with an outwardly different persona and new literary style. Much of her life remains an enigma. Kavan suffered periodic bouts of mental illness and long-term drug addiction--she had become addicted to heroin in the 1920s and continued to use it throughout her life--and these facets of her life feature prominently in her work. She died in 1968 of heart failure, soon after the publication of her most celebrated work, Ice . See less