British crime writer – bestselling author Ruth Rendell is dead – Süddeutsche.de

The British writer Ruth Rendell was one of the first to make real literature from thrillers. Now she has died at the age of 85 years.

The British bestselling author Ruth Rendell is dead. She died at the age of 85 years, as her publisher Penguin Random House announced on Saturday. Rendell had suffered a stroke in January and it never recovered.

Rendell is known for her detective novels, among others for the series with the protagonist Inspector Wexford. “We are appalled by the loss of one of our most beloved authors,” it says in the statement of the publisher. The Guardian had Rendell once called “shockingly intelligent”.

Ruth Rendell has published more than 60 novels that have been translated into more than 20 languages. Many of them appeared under her pseudonym Barbara Vine. Some of her books have been made into a film, such as 1998 ‘Live Flesh – with skin and hair. “Directed by Pedro Almodóvar

Rendell was born in 1930 in the English county of Essex. After her studies she worked as a journalist for various newspapers. 1953 she married her colleague Don Rendell. 1975 the couple divorced, but married again two years later. The marriage was a son out.

Ruth Rendell was in 1997 for the Social-Democratic Labour Party is also a member of the British House of Lords.