Let me alone

Anna Kavan's reputation is escalating internationally, and translations of her books are appearing in many languages. This early novel is therefore of especial interest, as an account of personal stresses which she was later to use and develop in more subjective and experimental ways. Indeed, it was the name of the central character of Let Me Alone that the author chose when she changed her name as a writer (and her personal identity) from Helen Ferguson to Anna Kavan. Anna's mother dies in childbirth and she is brought up by her father and a governess, in a remote Pyrenean village. When she…