Sylvia Plath
1932-1963
pseudonym Victoria Lucas



American writer whose best-known poems are carefully crafted pieces noted for their personal imagery and intense focus. Plath wrote only two books before her suicide at the age of 31. Her posthumous ARIEL (1965) stunned the literary world with its power.


Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
(from ’Lady Lazarus’, 1966)


Plath was born in Boston the daughter of German immigrant parents. Her father was a professor of biology at Boston University, and had specialized in bees. He has been characterized as authoritarian and died in 1940 when Plath was eight years old. Plath appeared to be a model student: she won prizes and scholarships. She studied at Gamaliel Bradford Senior High School (now Wellesley High School) and at the Smith College from 1950 to 1955. LETTERS HOME (1975), edited by Plath’s mother, reveals a portrait of a young woman driven by hopes for the highest success, alternating with moods of deep depression.


Her first awarded story, ”Sunday at the Mintons,” was published in the magazine Mademoiselle 1952 while she was still at college. In 1953 Plath worked on the college editorial board of the same magazine and suffered her first mental breakdown, which led to a suicide attempt. She described this period of her life in THE BELL JAR, her autobiographical novel, which was published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas in 1963. The novel takes place in New York at the height of the Cold War, during the hot summer in which the Rosenbergs were sent to the electric chair, convicted of spying for the Soviets. Against this background Plath sets the story of the breakdown and near-death of her heroine. The book is considered a powerful exploration of the restricted roles of women. With J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye it is recognised as a classic of adolescent angst.







The information and the picture are from:
http://www.biblion.com/litweb/biogs/plath_sylvia.html