Bernice Rubens (26 July 1923 – 13 October 2004)[1] was a Welsh novelist.[2] She became the first woman to win the Booker Prize in 1970, for The Elected Member.
Personal history
Bernice Ruth Reuben was born in Splott, Cardiff, Wales, on 26 July 1923, the third of four children of Eli Reuben and his wife Dorothy, née Cohen.[1] Her father was a Lithuanian Jew who, at the age of 16, left mainland Europe in 1900 in the hope of starting a new life in New York City. Due to being swindled by a ticket tout, he never reached the United States, his passage taking him no further than Cardiff.[2] He decided to stay in Wales, and there he met and married Dorothy Cohen, whose Polish family had also emigrated to Cardiff.
Bernice was one of four children and came from a musical family, both her brothers, Harold and Cyril, becoming well-known classical musicians. Her sister Beryl was a prestigious viola and violin teacher. Harold was forced to quit playing through illness, but Cyril (1926-1996) became a violinist in the London Symphony Orchestra.[2] Bernice failed to follow in her family's musical tradition, though she would later learn the cello. She was educated at Cardiff High School for Girls and later read English at the University of Wales, Cardiff, where she was awarded her BA in 1947.[3]
She married Rudolf Nassauer, a wine merchant who also wrote poetry and fiction.[2] They had two daughters, Rebecca and Sharon. From 1950 to 1955, Rubens taught at a grammar school in Birmingham, before moving onto the film industry where she made documentaries. In the 1960s the poet Jon Silkin rented the attic storey of their London house and sublet rooms to David Mercer, later a prolific West End and TV playwright, and Malcolm Ross-Macdonald, later an equally prolific writer of historical novels.
Professional career as a writer
Rubens' first novel, Set On Edge, was published in 1960. In 1970, she became the first woman to win the Booker Prize (the second year of the prize's existence), for her novel The Elected Member.[4] As of 2024, Rubens is still the only Welsh author to have won the Booker Prize.[5]
In June 2024 a Purple Plaque was installed on the house that was her family's home in Roath.[6]
Adaptations
Her 1962 novel, Madame Sousatzka, was made into a film in 1988, with Shabana Azmi and Shirley MacLaine. This book was based on the experiences of her brother Harold Rubens, a child prodigy pianist, and his teacher Madame Maria Levinskaya (died 1960) who inspired the character of Madame Sousatzka.[7] Harold Rubens was born in Cardiff in 1918, and studied with Levinskaya from the age of seven. The musical Sousatzka was produced in Toronto in 2017. It was intended to be a pre-Broadway tryout for controversial producer Garth Drabinsky. Victoria Clark portrayed the title role.[8]
