Irish Novelist Maeve Binchy Gone at Age 72

The Irish authoress of Light a Penny Candle, Tara Road and Circle of Friends is dead at age 72.

From the Irish Times

In all she wrote 16 books, two of which, The Lilac Bus and Echoes, were made into TV films while Circle of Friends, Tara Road and How About You were made into feature films.

She wrote four collections of short stories altogether, a play for RTÉ Deeply Regretted By, which won a Jacob’s award in 1978, and the novella Star Sullivan.

It has been estimated that her books have sold 40 million copies in 37 languages.

In 1999 she received the British Book Award for Lifetime Achievement.

In 2000 it was a People of the Year Award in Ireland. In 2001 she won the WH Smith Book Award for Fiction. In 2007 she received the Irish PEN/AT Cross Award and in 2010 it was a lifetime achievement award from the Irish Book Awards.

. . . She once said she would like her motto to be: “We have to make our own happiness.” It was probably her greatest achievement that she did just that and despite illness in later years.

As she told this newspaper on July 3rd last: “I’ve been very lucky and I have a happy old age with good family and friends still around.” In Binchy’s case the description “a national treasure” is that rare snug fit.