Asylum Piece
 | |
| Author | Anna Kavan |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Short story collection |
| Publication date | 1940 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (hardback) |
| Pages | 206 |
Asylum Piece is a short story collection by Anna Kavan, and the first published under her pen name "Anna Kavan" instead of her married name, Helen Ferguson.[1] Kavan sold three stories from the collection to Harper's Bazaar before the book was published.[2] The collection of stories draws from Kavan's life and experiences in mental institutions, and uses figurative language to describe how different characters experience madness, abjection, and despair.[3]
Anaïs Nin praised the book in her 1968 manifesto, The Novel of the Future, writing that:
Anna Kavan made a significant beginning as a nocturnal writer with House of Sleep and achieved this kind of revelation with a classic equal to the work of Kafka titled Asylum Pieces [sic] in which the nonrational human being caught in a web of unreality still struggles to maintain a dialogue with those who cannot understand him.[4]
Nin also praised the book's ability to "[enter] the world of the divided self," along with Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf and I'm Not Stiller by Max Frisch.[4]
List of stories
Story list is taken from the 1981 reprint by Peter Owen.[5]
- The Birthmark
- Going Up in the World
- The Enemy
- A Changed Situation
- The Birds
- Airing a Grievance
- Just Another Failure
- The Summons
- At Night
- An Unpleasant Reminder
- Machines in the Head
- Asylum Piece I
- Asylum Piece II
- Asylum Piece III
- Asylum Piece IV
- Asylum Piece V
- Asylum Piece VI
- Asylum Piece VII
- Asylum Piece VIII
- The End in Sight
- There Is No End
References
- ↑ Evangelou, Angelos (2022). ""In fact I am an animal": Mental Illness, Vulnerability and the Problem of Empathy in Anna Kavan's Asylum Piece". English Studies. 103 (2). Retrieved May 19, 2026.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ Robson, Leo (March 23, 2020). "The Curious Creation of Anna Kavan". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 19, 2026.
- ↑ Bitter, Kirsten (2016). "Abjection within Anna Kavan's Asylum Piece: Exploring the language of madness". Student Thesis. Retrieved May 19, 2026.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - 1 2 Nin, Anaïs (1968). Novel of the Future. Macmillan Publishing.
- ↑ Kavan, Anna (1981). Asylum Piece. Peter Owen.