Asylum Piece

{{Short description|1940 short story collection by Anna Kavan}} {{Infobox book | name = Asylum Piece | title_orig = | image = Asylum_Piece_by_Anna_Kavan.jpeg | author = Anna Kavan | country = United Kingdom | language = English | genre = Short story collection | publisher = | pub_date = 1940 | media_type = Print (hardback) | pages = 206 | preceded_by = | followed_by = }} '''''Asylum Piece''''' is a short story collection by Anna Kavan, and the first published under her pen name "Anna Kavan" instead of her birth name, Helen Ferguson.<ref name="es" /> Kavan sold three stories from the collection to ''Harper's Bazaar'' before the book was published.<ref name="newyorker" /> 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.<ref name="abj" />

Anaïs Nin praised the book in her 1968 manifesto, ''The Novel of the Future'', writing that: {{Blockquote |text=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.<ref name="notf" /> }} 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.<ref name="notf" />

== List of stories == Story list is taken from the 1981 reprint by Peter Owen.<ref name="kavan-ap" /> # 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 ==

{{Reflist|refs= <ref name="es">{{cite journal |last=Evangelou |first=Angelos |date=2022 |title=“In fact I am an animal”: Mental Illness, Vulnerability and the Problem of Empathy in Anna Kavan’s ''Asylum Piece'' |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/0013838X.2021.1952531?needAccess=true |journal=English Studies |volume=103 |number=2 |url-status=live |access-date=May 19, 2026}}</ref>

<ref name="abj">{{cite journal |last=Bitter |first=Kirsten |date=2016 |title=Abjection within Anna Kavan's Asylum Piece: Exploring the language of madness. |url= https://studenttheses.uu.nl/handle/20.500.12932/23098 |journal=Student Thesis |url-status=live |access-date=May 19, 2026}}</ref>

<ref name="newyorker">{{cite web |last=Robson |first=Leo |title=The Curious Creation of Anna Kavan |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/03/30/the-curious-creation-of-anna-kavan |date=March 23, 2020 |website=The New Yorker |access-date=May 19, 2026}}</ref>

<ref name="kavan-ap">{{cite book |last=Kavan |first=Anna |title=Asylum Piece |date=1981 |publisher=Peter Owen |url=https://archive.org/details/asylumpieceother0000anna/}}</ref>

<ref name="notf">{{cite book |last=Nin |first=Anaïs |title=Novel of the Future |date=1968 |publisher=Macmillan Publishing |url=https://archive.org/details/noveloffuture00nina/}}</ref> }}

Category:Books by Anna Kavan Category:1940 short story collections