Anna Kavan, Ice (1967) and Representations of Sexual Violence

What is it about?

The article is part of the current increase in literary critical in Anna Kavan, a British novelist who was writing between the 1930s and the 1960s. The article disputes existing critical readings of Kavan, and argues, through a reading of her last novel, Ice (1967), and its links to a British novel published two years before, Alan Burns' Europe After the Rain, that Kavan was engaged in the literary debates of her time and has something forceful to say about the links between sexual violence and literary experiment.

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Why is it important?

It is part of a revived critical interest in Anna Kavan, and unlike much work on her from the past, it sees her as neither an isolated writer nor one who is complicit with patriarchal attitudes.