Spark, Muriel (1918–2006)

English novelist. Born Muriel Sarah Camberg, Feb 1, 1918, in Edinburgh, Scotland; died Apr 13, 2006, in Florence, Italy; dau. of Bernard (Barney) Camberg (Jewish mechanical engineer) and Sarah (Cissy) Uezzell Camberg; attended Heriot-Watt College, 1936; m. Sydney Oswald Spark (S. O. S.), in 1937 (div. 1942); lives with Penelope Jardine (sculptor); children: 1 son, Robin Spark.

Prominent English novelist and a convert to Roman Catholicism, whose works focus on moral conflicts and religious belief, moved to Rhodesia (1937); returned to England (1944); became secretary of Poetry Society and editor of Poetry Review (1947); founded her own magazine, Forum (1949); received prize for short story "The Seraph and the Zambesi" (1951); published The Fanfarlo and Other Verse (1952); baptized into Anglican Church (1953); received into Roman Catholic Church (1954); published 1st novel The Comforters (1957), followed by Memento Mori (1959), The Bachelors (1960), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961); lived in Israel (1961) and New York (1962–66); published The Girls of Slender Means (1963) and The Mandelbaum Gate (1965); moved to Rome (1966); moved to rural Tuscany (1985); other novels include, The Abbess of Crewe (1974), Territorial Rights (1979), Loitering with Intent (1981), The Only Problem (1984), A Far Cry from Kensington (1988), Symposium (1990), Reality and Dreams (1997) and Aiding and Abetting (2001); also wrote children's books, short stories, and biographies. Awarded Order of the British Empire (1967).

See also Curriculum Vitae: Autobiography (1992); Alan Bold, Muriel Spark (Methuen, 1986); Norman Page, Muriel Spark (Macmillan, 1990); Ruth Whittaker, The Faith and Fiction of Muriel Spark (St. Martin, 1982); Peter Kemp, Muriel Spark (Harper & Row, 1975); Derek Stanford, Muriel Spark: A Biographical and Critical Study (Centaur, 1963); and Women in World History.