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Clara Farmer, her publisher at Chatto & Windus, an imprint of Penguin Random House, said: \u201cAntonia\u2019s books are the most wonderful jewel boxes of stories and ideas.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer compulsion to write (A4 blue notebook always to hand) and her ability to create intricate skeins of narrative was remarkable. It was always a treat to see her, to hear updates about her evolving literary characters and indulge in delicious titbits of literary gossip.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike all Chatto\u2019s publishers before me, I was devoted to her and her writing.<\/p>\n
\u201c2024 would have been her 60th (Diamond) anniversary as a Chatto author. We mourn her loss but it\u2019s a comfort to know that her penetrating works will dazzle, shine and refract in the minds of readers for generations to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dame Antonia Susan Duffy, who wrote under the name AS Byatt won a host of literary awards during a five decade career from the Booker to a Chevalier of France\u2019s Order of Arts and Letters.<\/p>\n
Born Antonia Drabble in 1936, Byatt grew up in Sheffield and York, before studying English at Cambridge.<\/p>\n
She began teaching at University College London in 1962 and published her first novel, Shadows of a Sun, two years later.<\/p>\n
A novel about two rival sisters followed in 1967 appearing two years after her sister, the author Margaret Drabble, published her own novel on a similar theme.<\/p>\n
READ MORE: <\/strong> Prince Harry \u2018will be furious\u2019 at The Crown\u2019s Diana funeral scene, says author<\/strong><\/p>\n Possession, a time-jumping tale, tells the story of the love between two Victorian poets that is uncovered by scholars in the modern age.<\/p>\n The book was adapted for a 2002 romance mystery movie of the same name starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Aaron Eckhart, Toby Stephens and Tom Hollander.<\/p>\n In 2009 Dame Antonia had success with The Children\u2019s Book which also saw her shortlisted for the Booker Prize and become a winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.<\/p>\n Zoe Waldie, her literary agent at agency RCW, said she \u201cheld readers spellbound\u201d and called her writing \u201cmulti-layered, endlessly varied and deeply intellectual, threaded through with myths and metaphysics\u201d.<\/p>\n She added: \u201cHer formidable erudition and passion for language were combined with a love of scholarship and an astonishing memory, forged learning poetry and rules for spelling and grammar by heart as a child.\u201d<\/p>\n Don’t miss… <\/strong> Ms Waldie also said: \u201cShe was interested in so many things; phone calls with her about work were never routine, nor brief, and would reliably and joyfully digress to the topic of a painter or new exhibition, or to a European writer she\u2019d just discovered, or to how the brain works, or to the tennis on television, or travel …<\/p>\n \u201cShe was a committed Europhile and relished getting to know her many foreign publishers and translators, on the continent and beyond.<\/p>\n \u201cShe was avidly interested in new writing and delighted in championing upcoming authors. We are heartbroken to have lost her, and our thoughts are with her family.\u201d<\/p>\n
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