Novel
Spinster
Sylvia Ashton-Warner · 1958
Synopsis
Anna Vorontosov, an unmarried woman in her forties, teaches in an isolated country school where her pupils, of mixed ages and levels, are mostly Māori. Amid the disorder of her classroom, she works out her own way of teaching reading. Flawed, she drinks brandy, forgets her promises and still thinks of a lost love, Eugene. A self-doubting young teacher, who also drinks, claims to love her; with the headmaster she shares a brotherly friendship, and the chief inspector begins by criticising her methods.
Context
The novel was published in London in 1958 by Secker & Warburg and transposes into fiction the development of a teaching method. The editor Robert Gottlieb prepared the American edition. The book appeared in French as early as 1961 from Calmann-Lévy under the title Anna et les Maoris, and was brought to the screen the same year under the title Two Loves, with Shirley MacLaine. Virago reissued it in 1980 with an introduction by Fleur Adcock.
Who it is for
A novel translated into French in 1961, now to be tracked down second-hand. The class and its children take up more room in it than a plot.
Prizes and reception
His greatest success: a best-seller in the United States, chosen by Time among the best books of the year, translated into many languages.