British Author Jane Gardam Passes Away

Jane Gardam, born in Redcar, Yorkshire, received numerous literary awards throughout her 50-year career, including an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2009 for her services to literature.
According to cinemadrame News Agency, Gardam was the only author to win the Whitbread Award in two different categories: in 1981 for the children’s novel “The Hollow Land” and in 1991 for the adult novel “The Queen of the Tambourine.” Additionally, her novel “Old Filth” was included in the BBC’s list of 100 greatest British novels in 2015.
The Guardian reported that Ian McEwan, a prominent British author, referred to Gardam as a “treasure of contemporary English writing.” Novelist Maggie Gee, writing about “Old Filth” upon its publication in 2004, stated: “Gardam’s writing is full of energy, variety, and sensory richness. It is as if a 25-year-old is wielding the pen in the hands of a woman with the wisdom and subtlety of a 100-year-old.”
Jane Gardam was born in 1928 and grew up in the coastal town of Redcar, Yorkshire. Her father was a math teacher, and her mother was a homemaker but interested in writing. Gardam told The Guardian in a 2005 interview: “My mother was constantly writing. If she saw a child in the street, she would ask them to take a letter to the post office. She was always writing jottings.”
Jane Gardam’s novel “Crusoe’s Daughter,” published in 1985, was largely inspired by her mother. Gardam stated that the novel was about a girl who was denied an education simply because she was a girl; if she had been a boy, funds for her education would have been provided.
After World War II, she moved to London to study and graduated with a degree in English Literature from Bedford College, part of the University of London. Afterward, she chose jobs related to books, including a mobile Red Cross librarian, and later became a journalist and editor for Weldons Ladies’ Journal.
She married David Gardam, a barrister, who later inspired the main character in her novel “Old Filth.” They had three children, and Gardam began writing when her youngest child went to school.
Her last book, “Last Friends,” was published in 2013 and was nominated for the Folio Prize in 2014. This novel was the final part of the author’s trilogy, following “Old Filth” and “The Man in the Wooden Hat.”