In the memory of Ruth
Prawer Jhabvala, only writer who own both Oscar and Booker. She always
stayed away from limelight and lived a quite life.
Ruth Prawer was
born in Cologne, Germany to Jewish parents
Marcus and Eleanora Prawer. Marcus was a lawyer who moved to Germany from Poland
to escape conscription and Eleanora's father was cantor of Cologne's largest
synagogue. The family fled the Nazi regime in 1939, emigrating to Britain.
During World War
II, Jhabvala lived in Hendon in London,
experienced the Blitz and began to speak English rather than German. She became
a British citizen in 1948. The following year, her father committed suicide
after discovering that forty members of his family had died during the
Holocaust. Jhabvala attended Hendon County School
and then Queen
Mary College,
where she received an MA in English literature in 1951.
In 1951, Prawer
married Cyrus H. Jhabvala, an Indian Parsi architect. The couple moved
to Delhi, India, and they had three
daughters: Ava, Firoza and Renana. Her three daughters are living in three
different countries, India,
the United States and England.
In 1975 Jhabvala moved to New York and
divided her time between India
and the United States.
In 1986, she became a naturalised citizen of the United States.
In 1963, Jhabvala
was approached by filmmakers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant to write a
screenplay of her 1960 novel The Householder. The film, The Householder, was
released by Merchant Ivory Productions in 1963 – this began a partnership that
would produce over 20 films. She had no previous film making experience. The
next Merchant-Ivory project Shakespeare Wallah (1965), was a critical success,
and it was followed by a number of other collaborations between the three,
including an adaptation of Jhabvala's novel Heat and Dust, (1983); the
docudrama The Courtesans of Bombay (1983); A Room with a View (1985),
for which she won her first Oscar; Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990); Howards
End (1992), her second Oscar win; and The Remains of the Day (1993), for
which she was nominated for a third Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay,
though she did not win. Her screenplays are often less comedies of manners than
profound struggles over the souls of young women.
She also own a Booker Prize for Heat and Dust and
only writer to own Oscar and Booker.
Jhabvala died in
her home in New York City
on 3 April 2013 at the age of 85. Jhabvala is survived by her husband and three
daughters.
one day, everyone
have to go and there is no escape from death, Socrates, left behind this
beautiful quote.
!!!The hour of departure has arrived, and we
go our separate ways, I to die, and you to live. Which of these two is better
only God knows. – Socrates!!!
