Euphoria
Elin Cullhed
Available as Paperback, Hardback, eBook, Downloadable audio
A luminous portrayal of a brilliant mind who is at once at battle with herself and with the constraints that society has placed on her
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BERNARD SHAW PRIZE
A woman’s life, erupting with brilliance and promise, is fissured by betrayal and the pressures of duty. What had once seemed a pastoral family idyll has become a trap, and she struggles between being the wife and mother she is bound to be and yearning for so much more.
The woman in question is Sylvia Plath in the final year of her life. As Plath’s marriage to Ted Hughes unravels, Sylvia turns increasingly to writing to express her pain and loss, yet also her resilience and power. She has decided to die, but the art she creates in her final weeks will set her name, and the world, ablaze.
“An audacious, gripping novel … a book for our times”
guardian
See more reviews
”Euphoria is about the fissures between motherhood, love and creativity but is also a celebration of Plath’s power”
evening Standard
“Compelling and visceral”
irish Examiner
“A novel about the conflicted emotional underbelly of female experience - including childbirth, desire, envy, rage, insecurity, ambition … Brave”
times Literary Supplement
“A sensitive and artistic account of a woman attempting to write herself out of oblivion … not a book about death, it is a book about art, more specifically, female art, and its resilience and endurance”
sunday Business Post
Elin Cullhed
Elin Cullhed is a Swedish author who made her debut in 2016. Euphoria is her first novel for adults. It won the 2021 August Prize, Sweden’s most prestigious literary award, and was a finalist for the Strega European Prize.
Jennifer Hayashida is a poet, translator and artist. She is the recipient of awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation and MacDowell, among others. Her translations from the Swedish include work by Athena Farrokhzad, Iman Mohammed and Ida Börjel.
Where to start with Sylvia Plath
On the 90th anniversary of Sylvia Plath’s birth, Elin Cullhed shares this insightful guide to the great writer’s work, from The Bell Jar, to the poems, to essays, journals and short fiction. (Elin’s wonderful novel Euphoria is an imaginative portrayal of the last year of Plath’s life.)
Elin Cullhed
Guardian