Ann Quin (17 March 1936 – 27 August 1973) was a British writer noted for her experimental style. The author of ''

Berg Berg may refer to: People *Berg (surname), a surname (including a list of people with the name) * General Berg (disambiguation) * Berg Ng (born 1960), Hong Kong actor * Berg (footballer, born 1963), Ninimbergue dos Santos Guerra, Brazilian footba ...

'' (1964), ''Three'' (1966), ''Passages'' (1969) and ''Tripticks'' (1972), she died by drowning in 1973 at the age of 37.

Life

Quin was born in

Brighton Brighton ( ) is a seaside resort in the city status in the United Kingdom, city of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, England, south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze Age Britain, Bronze Age, R ...

Sussex Sussex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈsʌsɪks/; from the Old English ''Sūþseaxe''; lit. 'South Saxons'; 'Sussex') is an area within South East England that was historically a kingdom of Sussex, kingdom and, later, a Historic counties of England, ...

, in March 1936, in a family on the fringes of the working class and lower-middle class. Her father, former opera singer Nicholas Montague Quin, left the family, and she was raised by her mother, Ann (née Reid), alone.Talking to Women, Nell Dunn, MacGibbon & Kee, 1965, pp. 125-153 She was educated at a Roman Catholic school, the Convent of the Blessed Sacrament in Brighton, until the age of 17. She trained as a shorthand typist and worked in a solicitor's office, then at a publishing company as a manuscript reader and as secretary to the foreign publishing rights manager, after which she moved to Soho and began writing novels. In 1964-65 Quin had an affair with

Henry Williamson Henry William Williamson (1 December 1895 – 13 August 1977) was an English writer who wrote novels concerned with wildlife, English social history, ruralism and the First World War. He was awarded the Hawthornden Prize for literature in 1928 ...

, the novelist who wrote ''

Tarka the Otter ''Tarka the Otter: His Joyful Water-Life and Death in the Country of the Two Rivers'' is a 1927 novel by English writer Henry Williamson, first published by G. P. Putnam's Sons with an introduction by Sir John Fortescue. It won the Hawthornd ...

'', and who was some forty years her senior. Williamson portrayed her as Laura Wissilcraft in his

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

''The Gale of the World''. She had bouts of mental illness, suffering a breakdown whilst working in a hotel in Cornwall, and later receiving electro-shock treatment. During the first Bank Holiday weekend of August 1973, she drowned herself off Brighton's Palace Pier, weeks before the death of her contemporary

B. S. Johnson Bryan Stanley William Johnson (5 February 1933 – 13 November 1973) was an English experimental novelist, poet and literary critic. He also produced television programmes and made films. Early life Johnson was born into a working-class family, ...

. A witness named Albert Fox saw a woman walking into the sea and contacted the police; the next day, a yachtsman found a body near Shoreham Harbour. An appeal was launched in Brighton and Hove's local newspaper, '' The Argus,'' and the woman was identified as Quin. The coroner recorded an

open verdict The open verdict is an option open to a coroner's jury at an inquest in the legal system of England and Wales. The verdict means the jury confirms the death is suspicious, but is unable to reach any other verdicts open to them. Mortality studies ...

Career

Quin is associated with a loosely constituted circle of 'experimental' authors in Sixties Britain, headed by B. S. Johnson and including

Stefan Themerson Stefan Themerson (25 January 1910 – 6 September 1988) was a Polish writer of children's literature, poet and inventor of Semantic Poetry, novelist, script writer filmmaker, composer and philosopher. He wrote in at least three languages. With ...

Rayner Heppenstall John Rayner Heppenstall (27 July 1911 in Lockwood, Huddersfield, Yorkshire, England – 23 May 1981 in Deal, Kent, England) was a British novelist, poet, diarist, and a BBC radio producer.John Wakeman, ''World Authors 1950-1970 : a companion vol ...

, Alan Burns and

Eva Figes Eva Figes (; 15 April 1932 – 28 August 2012) was an English author and feminist. Figes wrote novels, literary criticism, studies of feminism, and vivid memoirs relating to her Berlin childhood and later experiences as a Jewish refugee from Hit ...

, influenced by

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

and recent French fiction (

Marguerite Duras Marguerite Germaine Marie Donnadieu (, 4 April 1914 – 3 March 1996), known as Marguerite Duras (), was a French novelist, playwright, screenwriter, essayist, and experimental filmmaker. Her script for the film ''Hiroshima mon amour'' (1959) ea ...

Alain Robbe-Grillet Alain Robbe-Grillet (; 18 August 1922 – 18 February 2008) was a French writer and filmmaker. He was one of the figures most associated with the ''Nouveau Roman'' () trend of the 1960s, along with Nathalie Sarraute, Michel Butor and Claude Simo ...

). They stood in opposition to the dominant tendency for social realism, manifest from

John Osborne John James Osborne (12 December 1929 – 24 December 1994) was an English playwright, screenwriter, actor, and entrepreneur, who is regarded as one of the most influential figures in post-war theatre. Born in London, he briefly worked as a jo ...

and

John Wain John Barrington Wain CBE (14 March 1925 – 24 May 1994) was an English poet, novelist, and critic, associated with the literary group known as " The Movement". He worked for most of his life as a freelance journalist and author, writing and re ...

Karl Miller Karl Fergus Connor Miller FRSL (2 August 1931 – 24 September 2014) was a Scottish literary editor, critic and writer. Biography Miller was born in the village of Loanhead, Midlothian, and was educated at the Royal High School of Edinbu ...

's ''Writing in England Today'' (Penguin, 1968).Gordon, Giles, "Introduction", to Ann Quin, ''Berg'', Dalkey Archive, 2001. pp xii-xiv. Her first novel, ''Berg'', was published by Calder & Boyars in 1964. It was influenced by

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer and one of the most influential 20th-century modernist authors. She helped to pioneer the use of stream of consciousness narration as a literary device. Vir ...

Anna Kavan Anna Kavan (born Helen Emily Woods; 10 April 1901 – 5 December 1968) was a British novelist, short story writer and painter. Originally publishing under her first married name, Helen Ferguson, she adopted the name Anna Kavan in 1939 as both ...

and other female British modernists, as well as the French

nouveau roman The Nouveau Roman (, "new novel") is a type of French novel in the 1950s and 60s that diverged from traditional literary genres. Émile Henriot coined the term in an article in the popular French newspaper ''Le Monde'' on May 22, 1957 to describ ...

. Its opening line, 'A man called Berg, who changed his name to Greb, came to a seaside town intending to kill his father...' set the tone for a dark, psychological farce set in an unnamed seaside town that clearly resembles Brighton, which became the most critically acclaimed of her four novels. ''Berg'' was followed by ''Three'' (1966), ''Passages'' (1969) and ''Tripticks'' (1972), illustrated by her lover Carol Annand, in which Quin continued her formal experimentation, although without making the same critical impact as she had with her debut.

Influence

Her work has somewhat fallen into obscurity since her death, such that

Lee Rourke Lee Rourke (born 1972) is an English writer and literary critic. His books include the short story collection ''Everyday'', the novels ''The Canal'' (winner of '' The Guardian’s'' Not the Booker Prize in 2010), ''Vulgar Things'', and ''Glitc ...

could say in 2007: "Who cares about Ann Quin? I do, for one, but why does no one else seem to remember this writer from the front rank of Britain's literary ''avant-garde''?" However, there has been a complete reprint of her works by

Dalkey Archive Press Dalkey Archive Press is an American publisher of fiction, poetry, foreign translations and literary criticism specializing in the publication or republication of lesser-known, often avant-garde works. The company has offices in Funks Grove, Il ...

and

And Other Stories And Other Stories is an independent British book publisher founded in 2009, notable for being the first UK publisher of literary fiction to make direct, advance subscriptions a major part of its business model as well as for its use of foreign l ...

, as well as a critical biography by Robert Buckeye, with a collection of rare and previously unpublished stories and fragments, ''The Unmapped Country'', published by And Other Stories in 2018. Contemporary authors

Stewart Home Kevin Llewellyn Callan (born 24 March 1962), better known as Stewart Home, is an English artist, filmmaker, writer, pamphleteer, art historian, and activist. His novels include the non-narrative '' 69 Things to Do with a Dead Princess'' (2002 ...

, Tom McCarthy,

Chloe Aridjis Chloe Aridjis (born 1971) is a Mexican and American novelist and writer. Her novel ''Book of Clouds'' (2009) was published in eight countries, and won the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger. Her second novel, ''Asunder'' was published in 2013 to un ...

Deborah Levy Deborah Levy (born 6 August 1959) is a South African novelist, playwright and poet. She initially concentrated on writing for the theatre – her plays were staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company – before focusing on prose fiction. Her ear ...

Juliet Jacques Juliet Jacques (born 3 October 1981) is a writer, journalist and filmmaker. She is known for writing on her experiences as a trans woman, as well as her short fiction and cultural criticism, and also her critical writing on football. Jacques f ...

, Ellis Sharp,

Joanna Walsh Life Joanna Walsh is a multidisciplinary writer, editor and artist. She lives in Dublin, Dublin, Ireland. She is currently an MSCA postdoctoral fellow at NUI Maynooth. Works and reviews Her books include * ''Fractals'' (2013), * ''Ve ...

, and Rourke have cited her work as an influence. Pop artist

Billy Apple Billy Apple (born Barrie Bates; 31 December 19356 September 2021) was a New Zealand artist whose work is associated with the London, Auckland and New York schools of pop art in the 1960s and NY's Conceptual Art movement in the 1970s. He worke ...

has stated that his then-partner Quin was the ghost-writer of his thesis. In August 2022, Danielle Dutton published an article in ''The New Yorke''r praising Quin's work, especially how ''Tripticks'' satirizes the

beatnik Beatniks were members of a social movement in the mid-20th century, who subscribed to an anti- materialistic lifestyle. They rejected the conformity and consumerism of mainstream American culture and expressed themselves through various forms ...

culture.

Works

* ''

'' (Calder & Boyars, 1964; Dalkey Archive, 2001; And Other Stories, 2019, ) * ''Three'' (Calder & Boyars, 1966; Dalkey Archive, 2005; And Other Stories, 2020, ) * ''Passages'' (Calder & Boyars, 1969; Dalkey Archive, 2003; And Other Stories, 2021, ) * ''Tripticks'' (Calder & Boyars, 1972; Dalkey Archive, 2002; And Other Stories, 2022, ) * ''The Unmapped Country: Stories and Fragments'', ed. Jennifer Hodgson (And Other Stories, 2018, )

Adaptations of her work

''Berg'' was adapted for film in 1989 as ''

Killing Dad Killing Dad is a 1989 British black comedy film adapted from Berg, a 1964 novel by the British experimental writer Ann Quin. It stars Richard E. Grant as Alistair Berg, a man who travels to a seaside town intending to murder the father who ab ...

'', starring

Denholm Elliott Denholm Mitchell Elliott (31 May 1922 – 6 October 1992) was an English actor. He appeared in numerous productions on stage and screen, receiving BAFTA awards for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for ''Trading Places'' (1983), '' A Private Fu ...

and

Richard E. Grant Richard E. Grant (born Richard Grant Esterhuysen; 5 May 1957) is an Eswatini-born English actor and presenter. He made his film debut as Withnail in the comedy '' Withnail and I'' (1987). Grant received critical acclaim for his role as Jack H ...

References