Helen Dunmore has died aged 64 of cancer. She authored 12 novels, three books of short stories, numerous books for young adults and children and 11 collections of poetry.
She was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Chair of the Society of Authors until shortly before her death. She lived in Cliftonwood, Bristol the setting for her poignant last novel, Birdcage Walk (2017). Although she knew she was dying only at the editing stage she suggests, in an afterword, that she must have known subliminally because the novel was "full of a sharper light, rather as a landscape becomes brilliantly distinct in the last sunlight before a storm".
She was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Chair of the Society of Authors until shortly before her death. She lived in Cliftonwood, Bristol the setting for her poignant last novel, Birdcage Walk (2017). Although she knew she was dying only at the editing stage she suggests, in an afterword, that she must have known subliminally because the novel was "full of a sharper light, rather as a landscape becomes brilliantly distinct in the last sunlight before a storm".