Brookner, Anita (1928–)
Brookner, Anita (1928–)
British novelist and art historian. Born July 16, 1928, in London, England; dau. of Newson Brookner and Maude Brookner; attended King's College, University of London.
Renowned art historian, was a visiting lecturer at University of Reading (1959–64), then the 1st woman to serve as Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Cambridge (1967–68); a fellow of New Hall, Cambridge, was a reader at Courtauld Institute of Art (1968–88); published works in 18th- and 19th-century art history, including Watteau (1968), The Genius of the Future: Studies in French Art Criticism (1971) and Jacques-Louis David (1980); highly regarded as a practitioner of neo-realist fiction and compared to Woolf, James and Proust, published 22 novels, including A Start in Life (1981), Providence (1982), Look at Me (1983), Hotel du Lac (1984), Family and Friends (1985), A Misalliance (1986), A Friend from England (1987), Latecomers (1988), Brief Lives (1990), Fraud (1992), A Private View (1994), Altered States (1996), The Bay of Angels (2001) and The Next Big Thing (2001).
See also George Soule, Four British Women Novelists: Anita Brookner, Margaret Drabble, Iris Murdoch, Barbara Pym (Scarecrow, 1998).