Exclusive Sylvia Plath extract: Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom

Written on the brink of a tumultuous year, this short story by 20-year-old Plath captures a journey towards oblivion

A young woman is hustled on to a train by her parents bound for a destination known only as the Ninth Kingdom. An ominous pall of smoke hangs over a landscape dotted with abandoned settlements where the train no longer stops. “It’s the forest fires,” a fellow passenger tells her. “The smoke always blows down from the north this time of year.” Full of little nods towards the uncanny, it could almost be the opening of a Stephen King novel, but “Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom” is a short story by Sylvia Plath, which was rejected by a magazine when she was a 20-year-old student and has remained largely unseen until now.

The story will be published next week by Faber, as part of a series of standalone short fiction titles marking the publisher’s 90th anniversary. At the time of writing, Plath was a scholarship student at Smith College, Massachusetts, where – far from “splitting open at my feet like a ripe, juicy watermelon”, as she famously wrote to her mother at the start of her degree – the literary world was not opening up anywhere near fast enough for her.

Continue reading...

from Books | The Guardian http://bit.ly/2Svt5DK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mine management and predictive maintenance are top priorities for miners

Image
While miners are starting to trial and make small investments in technologies such as augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and cloud computing, the traditionally conservative mining sector remains focused on improving efficiency and productivity by continuing to invest in mine management software and predictive maintenance. GlobalData’s latest report, Global Mine-Site Technology Adoption Survey 2018 , reveals that while investment by the majors is currently well ahead of mid-tier miners and producing juniors, higher shares of the latter two groups are planning investments in mine management software and predictive maintenance given their immediate impact on improving productivity. Source: GlobalData Mining Intelligence Center The report includes data and analysis from the company’s survey of over 200 worldwide mine sites which investigated the extent to which mines had invested in 13 different technologies ranging from communication systems to drones, predictive maintenance
Read more

Life Insurance for Older Parents

Image
You never stop being a parent. Even in old age, we still worry about our children and what their future will look like once you are no longer in their lives. Fortunately, with a secure life assurance set up, you are given the opportunity to take care of them even after you are gone. If you are an aging parent and you have dependents who will suffer financial loss if you were to pass away, life insurance can help you find ways to safeguard your loved ones from any financial hardship when you are not around. Normally when you are older, you are settled and enjoying retirement or your golden years Your children are most often older and are now providing for themselves, leaving you only to take care of yourself and your spouse. This usually enables you to save in order to provide for your dependents in the case of your death. However, this is not always the case, which is why many older parents look into purchasing life insurance. Aging parents who are still working
Read more