Anna Kavan (1901–1968) was born Helen Woods. She began her
career writing under her married name Helen Ferguson, publishing
six novels. It was only after she had a nervous breakdown that she
became Anna Kavan, the protagonist of her 1930 novel Let Me Alone,
with an outwardly different persona and a new literary style. Much
of her life remains an enigma, but her talent was none the less
remarkable, and her works have been compared to that of Doris
Lessing, Virginia Woolf, and Franz Kafka. 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. Her widely admired works include Asylum Piece, I Am Lazarus,
and Julia and the Bazooka (published posthumously). She died in
1968 of heart failure, soon after the publication of her most
celebrated work, Ice.
Jonathan Lethem is the New York Times bestselling author of
nine novels, including Dissident Gardens, Chronic City, The
Fortress of Solitude, and Motherless Brooklyn, and of the essay
collection The Ecstasy of Influence, which was a National Book
Critics Circle Award finalist. A recipient of the MacArthur
Fellowship and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for
Fiction, Lethem’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s
Magazine, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and The New York Times, among
other publications.
Kate Zambreno is the author of the novels Green Girl
and O Fallen Angel, as well as two works of experimental
nonfiction, Heroines and Book of Mutter. She is at work on a series
of books about time, memory, and the persistence of art. She
teaches in the writing programs at Sarah Lawrence College and
Columbia University.
"One might become convinced that Kavan had seen the future . . . A
half century after its first appearance, Kavan’s fever dream of a
novel is beginning to seem all too real." -The New Yorker
"Ice is ambitious, unforgettable, and one of a kind. It
demands to be experienced." -The Millions
"A writer of intense imagination…. Slippery, bizarre, and
meticulously written…. A gripping and uniquely strange work of
science fiction.” -Kirkus, starred review
"One of the most mysterious of modern writers, Anna Kavan created a
uniquely fascinating fictional world. Few contemporary novelists
could match the intensity of her vision." —J.G. Ballard
“There is nothing else like it.” —Doris Lessing
"One [of] our greatest and most original novelists." —The
Guardian
"I can tell you about some women writers who truly are fantastic.
One is Anna Kavan . . . she's caught in a haze and then a light, a
little teeny light, come through. It could be a leopard, that
light, or it could be a spot of blood. It could be anything. But
she hooks onto that and spirals out. And she does it within the
accessible rhythms of plot, and that's really exciting. She's not
hung up with being a woman, she just keeps extending herself, keeps
telescoping language and plot." -Patti Smith
"Kavan is a brilliant high-modernist writer whose work has largely
fallen by the wayside, and it is truly a blessing that we have a
new version.” -The Rumpus
"Brooding, mysterious...a fascinating marriage of the Goth novel
with science fiction." —Publishers Weekly
"One of the most terrifying postulations of the end of the world."
—The Times of London
"What a writer, and what a vision. What a perfect book to read in
preparation for the end of the world." -Granta
"[A] marvelously gifted writer...an abundance of writing that
astonishes with poetic brilliance." —Sunday Telegraph
"Unique...its incantatory powers move it beyond the scopt of
science-fantasy." —Brian Aldiss
"Originally and masterfully written." —Columbus Dispatch
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