Booker Prize winning novelist Anita Brookner dies at 87

FILE - This is a Oct. 18, 1984 file photo of Booker prize-winning author and art historian Anita Brookner, who has died aged 87. A death notice in the Tuesday March 15, 2016 edition of The Times newspaper said that Brookner died peacefully in her sleep last Thursday . Brookner began her career as an art historian and wrote on that subject before turning to fiction, publishing her first novel in her 50s. Brookner wrote some 25 books and won the Booker Prize in 1984 for her novel “Hotel Du Lac.” (PA/File via AP) FILE - This is a Oct. 18, 1984 file photo of Booker prize-winning author and art historian Anita Brookner, who has died aged 87. A death notice in the Tuesday March 15, 2016 edition of The Times newspaper said that Brookner died peacefully in her sleep last Thursday . Brookner began her career as an art historian and wrote on that subject before turning to fiction, publishing her first novel in her 50s. Brookner wrote some 25 books and won the Booker Prize in 1984 for her novel “Hotel Du Lac.” (PA/File via AP)

By Associated Press March 15, 2016 1 min read

LONDON (AP) – Booker Prize-winning author and art historian Anita Brookner has died. She was 87.

A death notice in Tuesday’s edition of The Times newspaper said Brookner died peacefully in her sleep on Thursday.

Brookner began her career as an art historian and wrote on that subject before turning to fiction, publishing her first novel in her 50s.

Her spare, unflinching portrayals of loneliness and isolation won praise, especially from other writers. Novelist Jilly Cooper told The Times that Brookner was “a wonderful writer who had this wonderful lucid prose… she was an icon of my age.”

Brookner wrote some 25 books and won the Booker Prize in 1984 for her novel “Hotel Du Lac.”