A.S. Byatt was a British author who won the prestigious Booker Prize for her bestselling 1990 novel “Possession: A Romance.”
- Died: November 16, 2023 (Who else died on November 16?)
- Details of death: Died at the age of 87.
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A.S. Byatt’s legacy
Born Antonia Susan Drabble, Byatt published under her name from her first marriage. She was the sister of award-winning novelist Margaret Drabble. Byatt began writing novels while attending the University of Cambridge and was first published in 1964 with the novel “Shadow of a Sun.” She wrote part time in the beginning, also working as a teacher. After her son’s death at the age of 11 in a car accident, Byatt taught for a symbolic 11 years and then began writing full time.
Byatt’s best-known novel was “Possession: A Romance,” a bestseller that follows two academics as they research the details of a relationship between two Victorian poets. The critically acclaimed book was honored with the Booker Prize and was adapted into a movie starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart. Byatt’s 2009 novel “The Children’s Book” was also shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and it won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Her other books included the novels “Babel Tower,” “The Biographer’s Tale,” and “A Whistling Woman,” as well as the short story collection “The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye” and the novella “Morpho Eugenia.”
Byatt also wrote essays and literary criticism. She was honored as a Dame Commander of the British Empire and won many literary awards, including the Shakespeare Prize, the Erasmus Prize, and the Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award.
Notable quote
“We are always being told language is inadequate to describe things. I think it is endlessly inventive if we pay it attention.” —from a 2009 interview for the Guardian
Tributes to A.S. Byatt
Full obituary: BBC
