A dazzling and haunting vision of the end of the world, Ice is a masterpiece of literary science fiction now in a new 50th anniversary edition with a foreword by Jonathan Lethem "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 In a frozen, apocalyptic landscape, destruction abounds: great walls of ice overrun the world and secretive governments vie for control. Against this surreal, yet eerily familiar broken world, an unnamed narrator embarks on a hallucinatory quest for a strange and elusive “glass-girl” with silver hair. He crosses icy seas and frozen plains, searching ruined towns and ransacked rooms, all to free her from the grips of a tyrant known only as the warden and save her before the ice closes all around. A novel unlike any other, Ice is at once a dystopian adventure shattering the conventions of science fiction, a prescient warning of climate change and totalitarianism, a feminist exploration of violence and trauma, a Kafkaesque literary dreamscape, and a brilliant allegory for its author’s struggles with addiction—all crystallized in prose glittering as the piling snow. Kavan’s 1967 novel has built a reputation as an extraordinary and innovative work of literature, garnering acclaim from China Miéville, Patti Smith, J. G. Ballard, Anaïs Nin, and Doris Lessing, among others. With echoes of dystopian classics like Ursula Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven, Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle, and J. G. Ballard’s High Rise, Ice is a necessary and unforgettable addition to the canon of science fiction classics. "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 For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,800 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Ice: 50th Anniversary Edition (Penguin Classics)

Literature & Fiction

Kavan, Anna

Literary

Penguin Classics

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Science Fiction

'There is nothing else quite like Ice' Doris LessingSet in a frozen world that is gradually being devastated by ever-encroaching ice, Anna Kavan's masterwork follows one man's pursuit of a mysterious silver-haired girl to the ends of the earth; to the end of everything.'A brutal novel of a frozen post-nuclear dystopia. Just the most magnificent book ... hugely enigmatic, a genuine novel of the unconscious and a masterpiece' Frank Tallis, Guardian'Few novelists match the intensity of her vision' J. G. Ballard'She is De Quincey's heir and Kafka's sister' Brian Aldiss

Ice: Anna Kavan (Penguin Science Fiction)

Contemporary

SLEEP HAS HIS HOUSE (PICADOR)

Picador

Blends dream sequences and narrative to reveal an ice-and-snow world run by a secret government and threatened with nuclear devastation

Ice: A Novel

Reference

W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.

Julia and the bazooka, and other stories

Knopf: distributed by Random House

A Charmed Circle

PETER OWEN.

Asylum piece and other stories,

Owen

Depicting the hopeless, emotional polarity of a young couple, this novel follows their doomed marriage spent in a remote, tropical hell. She—described only as "the girl"—is young, sophisticated and sensitive. He, "Mr. Dog-Head," is an unreconstructed thug and heavy drinker who rapes his wife, otherwise passing his time bludgeoning rats with a tennis racket. Together with a visiting stranger, "Suede Boots"—who urges the woman to escape until he is banished by her husband—these characters live through the same situations twice. Their identities are equally real—or unreal—in each case. With slight variation in the background and the novel's atmosphere, neither the outcome nor the characters themselves are quite the same the second time. The constant question of the jungle "brain-lever" bird remains unanswered: who are you?

Who Are You?

Peter Owen Ltd

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