Author Lynn Reed Banks, known for her novels “The L-Shaped Room” and the children’s book series “Indians in the Closet,” has died at the age of 94.
Her agent, James Wills, said she died of cancer “peacefully, surrounded by her family” on Thursday afternoon. Her son, Gillon Stevenson, said she left behind a “huge legacy of great work,” adding: “Every day we receive messages from people about the difference she made.”
Reid Banks was born in 1929 in Barnes, south-west London. She evacuated to Saskatoon on the Canadian Prairies with her mother and cousin Christopher in 1940 during World War II for her five years.
After returning to England, Reid Banks attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada) and later became a secretary and freelance journalist. In 1955, she became one of the first female news reporters on British television, and on ITN she appeared for six years, appearing alongside Charlie Chaplin, Audrey Hepburn, Rita Hayworth, Louis Armstrong, Agatha Christie. We interviewed stars such as
During a break from her journalism career, she wrote The L-Shaped Room, a novel about an unmarried woman who, when she becomes pregnant, is kicked out of her parents’ home and moved into a dilapidated boarding house in London. The film was a surprise hit and was later made into a film, earning Leslie Caron an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, as well as a BAFTA and Golden Globe Award.
Victoria Segal writes in a book review for the Guardian’s “1000 Novels Everyone Should Read” series: “Banks’ compassionate first novel is about being an unwed mother in pre-pill, pre-abortion law Britain. We are examining the prejudices of “The social climate has changed dramatically since publication, but you can still hear the crackles of transgression coming from the pages.”
When her career began to take off in 1962, after the film The L-Shaped Room, she appeared on television and radio and published her second novel, The End to Running. Reed Banks fell in love with Anglo and she moved to Israel. -Israeli sculptor Chaim Stevenson. The author taught on a kibbutz for eight years and married Stevenson in 1965. In her husband’s obituary in the Guardian, the novelist wrote: It has been the greatest happiness and privilege of my life to be able to evolve and create such powerful and beautiful work. ”
By the time Reed Banks and Stephenson returned to England in 1971, they had three sons, including Gillon, and Reed Banks lived with them in Shepparton, Surrey, during the last years of his life. The influence of her writing in Israel can be seen in her books One More River, Broken Bridge, An End to Run, and Children at the Gate, which are partly or primarily set on a kibbutz. can do.
Back in the UK, Reed Banks said he had “the idea of bringing toy plastic American Indians to life in a magic cupboard” for a children’s book. The first book in the series, The Indian in the Cupboard, was published in his 1980. This fantasy story was made into his 1995 film starring Steve Coogan and Richard Jenkins.
She wrote many more fairy tales during her career, including “Red Red Dragon,” “Angela and Diavola,” “The Spice Rack,” “Tiger Tiger,” and Michael Morpurgo wrote “The Last Page.” “It burns brightly.”
Author interview Rob Kent’s blog In 2013, Reed Banks said that what she loves most about writing is when it’s “really flowing, when you can escape from everyday life into someone else’s world,” and “when you’ve just finished writing and you’re wondering what you’ve written.” “When you know what’s going on,” he said. It’s so incredible that it overwhelms the world. Before the editor gets a hold of it and tells you to rewrite it or cut it in half. This last thing happened to me. (She turned it into two books and was paid twice as much.)
In 2017, Reid Banks wrote in the Guardian about her mother, who took her own life in 1982 and was opposed to her daughter’s decision to marry a Jewish man and live on a kibbutz. “Anti-Semitism is a disease. That’s what I think,” Reed Banks wrote. “It’s like a virus that infects a healthy psyche. It’s also a curse that can ruin healthy, happy relationships.”
Reed Banks wrote about retirement in the Guardian in 2017: “We are the luckiest generation that has ever lived. We can look back and remember events that to younger people are just dry passages in history books or images on a screen. . For us they were real. We experienced the best of this world.”
The “About Me” section of her website ended with the following limerick:
There was an old woman named Rin.
Who should have been shoved into the trash can?
But she keeps going,
There is no sign of the momentum slowing down –
And no. It’s not Jin’s fault.
