Elaine Feinstein

Feinsteins triumph is to write so well that she makes Lenas predicament not only moving, in a perfunctory dismissive way, but also painful ... [she has] an accurate and acute feeling for language, and pauses, and silence.GuardianLenas seemingly contented family life is coming apart at the seams. Her husband Ben has been having an affair with the au pair, and as their relationship slides he retreats more and more into his work in a science lab. Sons Alan and Michael may appear happy enough, but this is far from the case - both are responding to a physical world which they alone inhabit. And Lena - desperately lost and seeking an identity of her own, both inside and outside of her family unit - increasingly finds solace at the bottom of a bottle. An exploration of just how lonely - and how magic - a marriage can be, The Circle is a poignant, poetic and incredibly assured debut novel.

Elaine Feinsteins poems are the harvest of a lifetime in literature. This selection, made by the author herself, gathers work from over half a century of published writing, and is completed by a section of new poems. The selection ranges from early poems of feminist rebellion and tender observation of children to elegies for the poets father and close friends, reflections on middle-age, the conflicts in a long marriage, and meditations on the lot of refugees. In new poems Feinstein records her treatment for cancer, her feelings of dread in the clinic and unexpected moments of extravagant happiness. The exploration of memory is at once a source of ironic amusement and an acknowledgement of human transience.

VIEJAS PELÍCULAS Cuando tenía quince años, en un cine de Torquay, Bogart y Bacall me desvelaron el súbito destello de la sexualidad: la chispa electrizante de su gran aventura valía más que toda una vida tranquila. Mis padres se quedaron perplejos. Años despues, en Leicester, llore bajo la lluvia de un cementerio y recorde su serena alegria. Ahora lo entiendo: no es sexo lo que ansiamos, sino amor.

Although Ted Hughes ended his days as England's beloved poet laureate, his life was dogged by tragedy and controversy. He never entirely recovered from the suicide of his wife Sylvia Plath in 1963, for which many have held his adultery responsible. In this insightful biography, the first written since Hughes's death, Elaine Feinstein explores an altogether more complex situation, throwing new light on his relationship with his lover Assia Wevill, who later killed herself along with their young daughter.

El relato de la experiencia personal de Anna Ajmatova que decidió quedarse en su país después de la guerra que asoló su país.