Susanna Kaysen

""It was probably because I was so often taken away from Cambridge when I was young that I loved it as much as I did . . ." " London, Florence, Athens: Susanna, a precocious young girl growing up in 1950s Cambridge," " would rather be home than in any of these places. Uprooted from the streets around Harvard Square, she feels lost and excluded in all the far-flung cities to which her father's career takes the family. She always comes home with relief--but soon enough wonders if outsiderness may be her permanent condition. Written with a sharp eye for the pretensions--and charms--of the intellectual classes, "Cambridge" captures the mores of an era now past, the ordinary lives of extraordinary people in a singular part of America, and the ways we can--and cannot--go home.

When reality got "too dense" for 18-year-old Susanna Kaysen, she was hospitalized. It was 1967, and reality was too dense for many people. But few who are labeled mad and locked up for refusing to stick to an agreed-upon reality possess Kaysen's lucidity in sorting out a maelstrom of contrary perceptions. Her observations about hospital life are deftly rendered; often darkly funny. Her clarity about the complex province of brain and mind, of neuro-chemical activity and something more, make this book of brief essays an exquisite challenge to conventional thinking about what is normal and what is deviant.

In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital to be treated for depression. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in the psychiatric hospital renowned for its famous clientele - Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor, Anne Sexton and Ray Charles.

To mark the 30th anniversary of this impactful bestselling memoir Girl Interrupted is now published as a Virago Modern Classic

En 1967, después de una sesión con un psiquiatra al que nunca había visto antes, Susanna Kaysen, de dieciocho años, fue internada en el Hospital McLean. Pasó la mayor parte de los dos años siguientes en la sala de chicas de un hospital psiquiatrico muy reconocido por haber tenido entre sus pacientes a celebridades como Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor y Ray Charles. Las memorias de Kaysen nos ofrecen un retrato vivido de un grupo de jovenes que han sido internadas debido a diferentes dolencias psiquicas. Lucida e ironica, la autora cuestiona los procedimientos de diagnostico y curacion, contraponiendo la complejidad de su propia experiencia con el agarrotamiento cultural de un sistema que muchas veces actua como percutor del sufrimiento psicologico. Traducido por primera vez al español, Inocencia interrumpida propone una mirada inteligente, piadosa y no exenta de humor sobre la fragilidad del espiritu y la borrosa frontera entre cordura y locura.

The bestselling book that inspired the cult classic film, Girl, Interrupted, starring Winona Ryder and Angelina Jolie.In 1967, after a session with a psychiatrist she'd never seen before, eighteen-year-old Susanna Kaysen was put in a taxi and sent to McLean Hospital to be treated for depression. She spent most of the next two years on the ward for teenage girls in a psychiatric hospital renowned for its famous clientele - Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor and Ray Charles.A clear-sighted, unflinching work that provokes questions about our definitions of sane and insane, Kaysen's extraordinary memoir encompasses horror and razor-edged perception while providing vivid portraits of her fellow patients and their keepers.'Not since Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar has a personal account of life in a mental hospital achieved as much popularity and acclaim' - TIME'Intelligent and painful' - Guardian'Poignant, astonishing memoir' - New York Times

En 1967, después de una sesión con un psiquiatra al que nunca había visto antes, subieron a un taxi a Susanna Kaysen, de dieciocho años, y la enviaron al Hospital McLean. Pasó la mayor parte de los dos años siguientes en la sala de chicas adolescentes de un hospital psiquiatrico muy reconocido por su famosa clientela (Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell, James Taylor y Ray Charles). Las memorias de Kaysen brindan retratos vividos de sus compañeras pacientes y sus cuidadores. Es una evocacion brillante de un "universo paralelo" ambientado en el paisaje cambiante de finales de los años sesenta. Inocencia interrumpida es un documento clarividente e inquebrantable que da una dimension duradera y especifica a nuestras de definiciones de cuerdo y demente, enfermedad mental y recuperacion. Inocencia interrumpida ha vendido mas de un millon y medio de ejemplares en Estados Unidos y estara en las librerias de España desde el 15 de septiembre. En 1999, James Mangold dirigio la version cinematografica, protagonizada por Winona Ryder y Angelina Jolie, quien recibio el Oscar a la mejor actriz de reparto por esta pelicula.