ANITA BROOKNER

The groundbreaking biography of Booker Prize winning novelist and art historian Anita Brookner from one of our leading literary biographers Hermione Lee reveals the full story of a brilliant idiosyncratic and complex woman and goes deep into Anita Brookner s marvellous work in all its stylishness and daring Born in south London in 1928 Brookner came from a family of middle class Polish Jewish immigrants Her parents were anxious and unhappy Until she was well into her thirties she nursed her invalid mother with a painful mixture of love and resentment She would have liked a marriage and children instead she lived alone and became a great writer of solitude self knowledge and survival For many years she worked at the Courtauld Institute teaching French Romanticism in art and influencing generations of students In her fifties she began to write fiction her first novel was the wryly titled A Start in Life In 1984 she won the Booker Prize for Hotel du Lac after that a novel appeared almost every year until her eighties In her lifetime Brookner was seen as an object of wonder and fascination She was a formidable and inspiring teacher an enormously knowledgeable witty and perceptive art historian and critic and a novelist like no other Her extraord