Iris Murdoch (1919–1998) is one of the most famous modern writers in Great Britain, a philosopher by training, who taught at Oxford for many years. Her works are a subtle psychological analysis of human relationships, complex and confusing, as most often happens in life. In the novel “Wild Rose” (1962), she appears as an expert on the female soul - lonely and suffering in a world that itself is a tangle of contradictions: bright feelings and base vices, revelry of the flesh and a sublime thirst for art, frankness “to the very bottom” and cunning deception. Overcoming the seeming predetermination of existence, the heroine, a young woman thirsting for love and understanding, finds a way out in gaining inner freedom.

Translation from English by Maria Laurie.