Anita Brookner was an esteemed English author, best known for her Booker Prize-winning novel "Hotel du Lac." She was born in London in 1928 and received a B.A. from King's College, University of London, and a Ph.D in the history of art from the Courtauld Institute. Brookner's academic background and expertise in art history greatly influenced her writing, which is known for its elegiac style and deep exploration of her characters' inner lives.
Before turning to fiction, Brookner had a successful career as an art historian and academic. She taught at the University of Reading from 1959 to 1964, and was a Lecturer in Art History at the Courtauld. In 1967, she became the first woman to hold the prestigious position of Slade Professor at Cambridge. Brookner's academic background and expertise in art history greatly influenced her writing, which is known for its elegiac style and deep exploration of her characters' inner lives.
Despite her impressive academic career, Brookner did not publish her first novel, "A Start In Life," until she was in her 50s. She went on to publish more than 25 works of fiction, including "Hotel du Lac," which won the Man Booker Prize in 1984, and "The Next Big Thing," which was longlisted for the same prize in 2002. Other notable works by Brookner include "Strangers" (2009), "Fraud" (1992), and "The Rules of Engagement" (2003).
Brookner's protagonists are often depicted as leading lonely and unfulfilled lives, which has been attributed to her own experiences growing up in a close-knit but insular community in London. She was born to a family of immigrants and was surrounded by both acquaintances and relatives who she described as fragile and transparent people. Despite the fact that their family opened up their homes for the Jewish refugees who were fleeing from the Nazi regime in Germany, Anita lived a very lonely life. This sense of a rather unfulfilled world carried over into her writing career, which she had started later in her life.