Elin Cullhed and Eia Uus

Elin Cullhed (1983) is a Swedish author. She met critical acclaim with her fiction debut, the young adult novel about the life of teenagers today, Gudarna (Gods, 2016). Her first novel for adults, Eufori (Euphoria, 2021), became a major literary event and won the prestigious August Prize. The novel looks at one of the most notable writers of the second half of the 20th century, American poet and prose writer Sylvia Plath (1932-1963). Cullhed concentrates on the last year of Plath’s life, which ended in suicide. Cullhed has said that she was inspired to write the novel by the similarity between Plath’s dilemmas and the central questions of her own life. The novel is about a brilliant poet suffering from clinical depression trying to balance creative and family life, striving for perfection in both. This aim is made more complicated by his famous and talented husband, poet Ted Hughes. Cullhed boldly explores the disintegration of the marriage between two complex people and the controversial emotions it brings, managing to avoid excessively sanctifying Plath while recognising her unique character, the tender yet furious strength of her nature.