Sarah Kane - Life

Life

Born in Brentwood, Essex, and raised by evangelical parents, Kane was a committed Christian in adolescence. Later, however, she rejected those beliefs. After attending Shenfield High School, she studied drama at Bristol University, graduating in 1992, and went on to take an MA course in playwriting at the University of Birmingham, led by the playwright David Edgar.

Kane struggled with severe depression for many years and was twice voluntarily admitted to the Maudsley Hospital in London. However, she wrote consistently, if slowly, throughout her adult life. For a year she was writer-in-residence for Paines Plough, a theatre company promoting new writing, where she actively encouraged other writers. Before that, she had worked briefly as literary associate for the Bush Theatre, London. Kane died in 1999, when, two days after taking an overdose of prescription drugs, she committed suicide by hanging herself by her shoelaces in a bathroom at London's King's College Hospital.

Read more about this topic:  Sarah Kane

Famous quotes containing the word life:

    In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can’t long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly.
    Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)

    For life is but a dream whose shapes return,
    Some frequently, some seldom, some by night
    And some by day,
    James Thomson (1834–1882)

    Tomorrow in the offices the year on the stamps will be altered;
    Tomorrow new diaries consulted, new calendars stand;
    With such small adjustments life will again move forward
    Implicating us all; and the voice of the living be heard:
    “It is to us that you should turn your straying attention;
    Us who need you, and are affected by your fortune;
    Us you should love and to whom you should give your word.”
    Philip Larkin (1922–1986)