Lynne Reid Banks (31 July 1929 – 4 April 2024) was a British author of books for children and adults, including The Indian in the Cupboard, which has sold over 15 million copies and has been successfully adapted to film.[2] Her first novel, The L-Shaped Room, published in 1960,[3] was an instant and lasting best seller.[4] It was later made into a movie of the same name and led to two sequels, The Backward Shadow and Two is Lonely. Banks also wrote a biography of the Brontë family, entitled Dark Quartet, and a sequel about Charlotte Brontë, Path to the Silent Country.
Life and career
Banks was born in Barnes, London, the only child of doctor James and actress Muriel Reid Banks.[4][5][6] She was evacuated to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada during World War II, with her mother and cousin, and returned after the war was over.[4] She attended St Teresa's School Effingham in Surrey. Before becoming a writer, Banks was an actress, attending drama school, and in 1955 began working as a television journalist at ITN, one of the first women to do so in Britain.[4][7][8] However, Banks felt she was pigeonholed into writing about certain subjects, and was often put to work writing scripts.[4]
In 1960, Banks released her first book, The L-Shaped Room, to massive success.[4]
In 1962, Banks emigrated to Israel, where she taught for eight years on a kibbutz, Yas'ur. In 1965, she married Chaim Stephenson (1926–2016), a sculptor, with whom she had three sons.[9] Although not Jewish, she became an Israeli citizen.[4]
Although the family returned to England in 1971,[5] the influence of her time in Israel can be seen in some of her books (including One More River and its sequel, Broken Bridge, and other books, such as An End to Running and Children at the Gate) which are set partially or mainly on kibbutzim.[citation needed] In England, the family lived in the London suburbs and Beaminster, Dorset.[4]
In October 2013, Banks won the J. M. Barrie award for outstanding contribution to children's arts.[10]
In her later years, Banks lived in Shepperton, Surrey.[11] She died from cancer at a care facility in Surrey, on 4 April 2024, at the age of 94.[5][12]
Torn Country: an oral history of the Israeli war of independence (New York: Franklin Watts, 1982)
Picture books
The Spice Rack, illus. Omri Stephenson (OGS Designs, 2010)
Polly and Jake, illus. Omri Stephenson (OGS, 2010)
References
^"Lynne Reid Banks". Bookclub. 6 June 2010. BBC Radio 4. Archived from the original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved 18 January 2014. James Naughtie and readers talk to the celebrated author Lynne Reid Banks about her first novel, The L-Shaped Room.
^"Home". lynnereidbanks.com. Archived from the original on 10 June 2019. Retrieved 21 June 2006.
^Kenrick, Vivienne (4 November 2006). "Lynne Reid Banks". The Japan Times. Archived from the original on 6 April 2024. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
^Banks, Lynne Reid (14 August 2011). "TV news in the 50s was more thrilling than The Hour". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 25 April 2023. Retrieved 29 January 2023. The BBC's drama set in a TV newsroom may be a murder mystery, but my days as a pioneering TV reporter were far more exciting
^"Awards". Action for Children’s Arts. 8 June 2010. Archived from the original on 29 January 2023. Retrieved 29 January 2023. 2013: The JM Barrie Award was presented to Lynne Reid Banks, author of more than forty books for children and a tireless champion of children's arts for many years.
^"About me". lynnereidbanks.com. Archived from the original on 29 January 2023. Retrieved 29 January 2023.
