This is the first English translation of Strindberg's dark novella about a young woman dissatisfied with her marriage and station in life. Drawn to the power of witches, she incurs the wrath of one and is branded as a witch, herself. Strindberg creates his own Madame Bovary, but more psychologically ambiguous and demonic than Flaubert's. Strindberg wrote A Witch at a particularly traumatic moment: the decision to divorce his wife "after ten years of happiness and misery." Believing his wife unfaithful, poisoned by sexual suspicion, and disgusted by his person and his genitals. A Witch presents a world of extreme anxiousness and frustration, where motives and identities change like quicksilver and order masks deep discontent and duplicity.
