Your Story, My Story

Translated from the Dutch by Eileen J. Stevens & Anna Asbury

2022 Longlist

In 1963 Sylvia Plath took her own life in her London flat. Her death was the culmination of a brief, brilliant life lived in the shadow of clinical depression—a condition exacerbated by her tempestuous relationship with mercurial poet Ted Hughes. The ensuing years saw Plath rise to martyr status while Hughes was cast as the cause of her suicide, his infidelity at the heart of her demise.

For decades, Hughes never bore witness to the truth of their marriage—one buried beneath a mudslide of apocryphal stories, gossip, sensationalism, and myth. Until now.

In this mesmerizing fictional work, Connie Palmen tells her side of the story, previously untold, delivered in Ted Hughes’s own uncompromising voice. A brutal and lyrical confessional, Your Story, My Story paints an indelible picture of their seven-year relationship—the soaring highs and profound lows of star-crossed soul mates bedeviled by their personal demons.

About the Author/Translator

Connie Palmen studied literature and philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. She is the author of The Laws, voted the European Novel of the Year and shortlisted for the 1996 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award; The Friendship, winner of the AKO Literature Prize; Lucifer; and the autobiographical novel I.M. Palmen currently lives in Amsterdam.

Eileen Stevens has many Dutch-to-English translation credits including Anna Enquist’s Homecoming, and a co-translation (with Anna Asbury) of Connie Palmen’s Your Story, My Story. A New Jersey native, Eileen spent twenty-five years working as a professional violinist in a Dutch orchestra before turning her attention to literary translation. 

Librarian’s Comments

Prize winning novel by Connie Palmen about the world famous literary couple Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. A fictional approach to what this marriage might have been like, but now through the eyes of Ted Hughes. The story of the tumultuous marriage of the famous poets and the fatal end of Plath’s life told once again, but now in an unprecedented, breathtaking way by Palmen. Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Netherlands