Muriel Spark was born and educated in
Edinburgh. Active in the field of creative writing
from 1950 (after winning a short-story competition in
the Observer), her many subsequent novels and stories, such as Memento
Mori, The Girls of Slender Means, The Only Problem, A Far Cry From
Kensington and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (adapted successfully for
both film and theatre), remain phenomenally popular throughout the
world.
She also wrote plays, poems and children's books as
well as biographies of Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë and John
Masefield. Her first autobiographical volume, Curriculum
Vitae, was published in 1992. She was elected C.Litt. in 1992
and was awarded the DBE in 1993.
During her lifetime she received many
awards, including; the Italia Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial
Prize, the FNAC Prix Etranger, the Saltire Prize, the Ingersoll T. S.
Eliot Award and the David Cohen British Literature Prize in recognition
of a lifetime's literary achievement.
She was elected an
honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1978 and
Commandeur de L'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France in
1996. Dame Muriel Spark died in 2006.
