Assia Wevill

Assia Wevill
Born
Assia Esther Gutmann

(1927-05-15)15 May 1927
Berlin, Germany
Died23 March 1969(1969-03-23) (aged 41)
Alma materBA University of British Columbia
Occupations
  • Translator
  • diarist
  • poet
Spouses
John Steele
(m. 1947; div. 1949)
(m. 1952, divorced)
(m. 1960)
PartnerTed Hughes (1962–1969)
ChildrenAlexandra Tatiana Elise "Shura" Wevill (murdered by Assia Wevill in 1969, aged 4)

Assia Esther Wevill (née Gutmann; 15 May 1927 – 23 March 1969) was a German-Latvian woman who fled the Nazis at the outset of the Second World War due to her father's Jewish heritage. She emigrated to Tel Aviv, Mandatory Palestine with her family in 1939, and later settled in England, where she became romantically involved with the English poet Ted Hughes, who was married to American poet and novelist Sylvia Plath. While she was a successful advertising copywriter and a talented translator of poetry, she is mainly remembered in the context of her relationship with Sylvia Plath and Hughes.