I Am Lazarus

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First published in 1945, I Am Lazarus was Anna Kavan's second collection of stories under her new name. Having previously published under the name Helen Ferguson, by this time she had begun using Anna Kavan (the name of one of her fictional characters) in all areas of her life. Readers familiar with her work will find echoes of the dystopian world of Asylum Piece and the hallucinatory, apocalyptic atmosphere of Ice. Written and set during the Second World War, the war not only provides a historical backdrop to the stories but shapes and saturates these narratives. On her return to England late in 1942, after more than three years travelling on five continents, Kavan was obliged to settle in London and find work. Her letters reveal that the Blitz-torn capital and the dull terror of everyday life there penetrated her self-assurance more profoundly than the far greater hazards she had risked in crossing the oceans. She writes of the relentless misery of the blackout, poor food and rationing and the atmosphere of terrible apprehension; she notes, ‘O, but it's dreary here, the war and the winter, the blackout, the dismal faces, the cold, the shabbiness, the feeling of death in the air’ (14 November 1943). We read these sentiments in the Lazarus stories, and in these fictional contexts Kavan's pacifism makes this a war without the possibility of a positive outcome. There is no right side to the conflict and no hope of victory; we see the human race destroying itself both physically and ideologically.

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