Hughes, Olywn.

Olwyn Marguerite Hughes, the sister of Ted Hughes, was born in Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire, on August 26, 1928. When the family moved, she attended Mexborough Grammar School and went on to London University to read English literature, graduating in 1950. She worked briefly as an editor of the magazine of the Coal Utilization Research Association near London, before moving to Paris in 1952. There she had various secretarial jobs with embassies and international organizations until she joined Martonplay, a theater and film agency representing such writers as Ionesco and Billetdoux. In the autumn of 1963, after the death of Sylvia Plath in February of that year, she returned to England, to live in Ted Hughes's Devon house to help with the children, Frieda aged 3 and Nicholas, not yet a year old. She stayed with them for two years and during this time translated a novel from French, The Return by Michel Droit and published by Andre Deutsch in 1966. She also became a literary agent, initially looking after Ted Hughes's writings and the work of such authors as Jean Rhys (who lived nearby) and Robert Nye. Moving to London in the autumn of 1965 she worked as an agent for the Plath estate and for various British authors and represented some distinguished foreign poets, including Yehuda Amichai, Janos Pilinszki, and Vasco Popa.