Madeleine Wickham, recognized for writing the bestselling novel Confessions of a Shopaholic below her pen identify Sophie Kinsella, has died aged 55.
Wickham, dubbed “the queen of romantic comedy” by novelist Jojo Moyes, wrote greater than 30 books for adults, kids and youngsters, which have offered greater than 45m copies.
In April 2024, Wickham introduced that she was recognized with glioblastoma, an aggressive sort of mind most cancers, on the finish of 2022, and had undergone radiotherapy and chemotherapy after surgical procedure.
Wickham was born in London in 1969. She studied music at New Faculty, Oxford, earlier than switching to Philosophy, Politics and Economics. After commencement, she turned a monetary journalist, however she stated she discovered the job uninteresting. Through the lengthy commute to central London, she would learn paperbacks by the likes of Mary Wesley and Joanna Trollope, and started wanting to jot down a e-book.
At 24, she wrote her first novel, The Tennis Occasion, a few group of associates who participate in a weekend event. “My overriding concern was that I didn’t write the autobiographical first novel,” Wickham advised the Guardian in 2012. “I used to be so, so decided to not write a few 24-year-old journalist. It was going to have male characters, and middle-aged folks, so I may say, look, I’m not simply writing about my life, I’m an actual writer.”
The Tennis Occasion was the primary of seven novels Wickham wrote below her actual identify, printed yearly between 1995 and 2001, together with Cocktails for Three, The Wedding ceremony Woman, Sleeping Preparations and The Gatecrasher. Sleeping Preparations was tailored as a musical by Chris Burgess.
The Madeleine Wickham books are “slightly totally different” from her later Sophie Kinsella books, stated the writer. “They’re a bit extra critical, a bit darker and are all ensemble items with no important heroine, however teams of characters whose lives interlink ultimately.”
Wickham submitted her first manuscript written below the identify Sophie Kinsella, The Secret Dreamworld of a Shopaholic, with out revealing her id to her publishers. The e-book – issued as Confessions of a Shopaholic in some international locations – was printed in 2000 and have become the primary of 10 instalments within the Shopaholic sequence. The tales comply with Becky Bloomwood, a monetary journalist with a spending downside. “I believed, wait a minute, procuring has grow to be the nationwide pastime, and no one has written about it,” stated Wickham. “It felt very very similar to an experimental mission.”
The sequence’ first and second novels – the latter titled Shopaholic Overseas – had been tailored for movie. Confessions of a Shopaholic, directed by PJ Hogan and starring Isla Fisher and Hugh Dancy, was launched in 2009.
Starting in 2003, Wickham additionally printed standalone novels as Sophie Kinsella. These embody Can You Preserve a Secret?, The Undomestic Goddess and Bear in mind Me?. Her most up-to-date standalone, printed in 2023, is titled The Burnout, which she was impressed to jot down after experiencing it herself and seeing it “round [her] in all places”. Protagonist Sasha goes to a Devon seashore resort she beloved as a toddler to recuperate from burnout, however finds the as soon as grand lodge now dilapidated, and has to share the seashore with the grumpy Finn.
“The fantastic response to The Burnout has actually buoyed me up throughout a troublesome time,” wrote Wickham within the announcement of her most cancers prognosis. Public messages of assist got here from Fisher, who performed Becky in Confessions of a Shopaholic, in addition to romance author Moyes and thriller author Gillian McAllister.
Wickham’s novels have usually been categorised as “chick lit”, owing to the romcom-esque conditions her usually ditzy heroines discover themselves in. But Wickham thought of the time period “chick lit” to imply “third-person modern humorous” novels. “You might be very smart, and in addition ditzy and klutzy,” stated Wickham. “You might be unable to prepare dinner, you possibly can like lipstick. And I feel it’s extra reasonable to symbolize ladies having all these aspects.”
Wickham additionally created the kids’s e-book sequence Mummy Fairy and Me, printed between 2018 and 2020. In 2015, she wrote a younger grownup novel, Discovering Audrey, a few teenage lady with social nervousness.
Wickham met her husband, Henry Wickham, on her first evening at Oxford College, and married him when she was 21. She is survived by her husband and their 5 kids.
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