This is Sylvia Plath's only
novel. The narrative is strongly autobiographical: the talented girl's journey into becoming
a highly gifted poetess stricken with identity crisis - all of this is mostly identical with the
author's life in the late 50s. The main character is young Esther whose poems have already won many awards. After an internship in New York many doors open for her. However, she finds herself unable to write, tumbles into a deep depression and attempts to take her own life. The reader follows the illnesses progression - described in a fascinatingly matter-of-fact tone: the poet's ambivalence, the struggle between intellect and melancholy. The author indirectly recounts her own dramatic life with shattering objectivity and an incredibly disciplined storytelling. A book and a short life that depict the difficulties that women and girls face as they get stuck between family and career searching for their identities. Sylvia Plath did not want to resolve this society-imposed dilemma. She committed suicide at 32, leaving behind two children, numerous brilliant poems and this one-of-a-kind
novel.