Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (; 7 May 19273 April 2013) was a British and American novelist and screenwriter. She is best known for her collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, made up of film director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant.

After marrying Indian architect Cyrus Jhabvala in 1951 and moving from England to New Delhi, she began to write novels and tales on Indian subjects. She wrote a dozen novels, 23 screenplays, and eight collections of short stories. After moving to the United States, she started writing screenplays for Merchant Ivory films. She is the only person to have won both a Booker Prize and an Oscar.

Early life and education Ruth Prawer was born on 7 May 1927 Marcus was a lawyer who had moved to Germany from Poland to escape conscription, and Eleanora's father was cantor of Cologne's largest synagogue. Her father was accused of having Communist links, and was arrested and then released. Ruth witnessed the violence unleashed against the Jews during the Kristallnacht.

She became a British citizen in 1948. The following year, her father committed suicide after discovering that 40 members of his family had been murdered during the Holocaust.

In 1975, she won the Booker Prize for her novel Heat and Dust, later adapted into a film. That year, she moved to New York where she wrote The Place of Peace. Cyrus Jhabwala died in Los Angeles in 2014.

Jhabvala "remained ill at ease with India and all that it brought into her life." She wrote in an autobiographical essay, Myself in India (published in London Magazine) that she found the "great animal of poverty and backwardness" made the idea and sensation of India intolerable to her, a "Central European with an English education and a deplorable tendency to constant self-analysis." Her early works in India dwell on the themes of romantic love and arranged marriages and are portraits of the social mores, idealism and chaos of the early decades of independent India. Writing about her in the New York Times, novelist Pankaj Mishra observed that "she was probably the first writer in English to see that India's Westernizing middle class, so preoccupied with marriage, lent itself well to Jane Austenish comedies of manners."

In 2005 she published My Nine Lives: Chapters of a Possible Past with illustrations by her husband and the book was described as "her most autobiographical fiction to date".

Merchant Ivory Productions

In 1963, Jhabvala was approached by James Ivory and Ismail Merchant to write a screenplay for their debut The Householder, based on her 1960 novel. During their first encounter, Merchant later said Jhabvala, seeking to avoid them, pretended to be the housemaid when they visited. The film, released by Merchant Ivory Productions in 1963 and starring Shashi Kapoor and Leela Naidu, met with critical praise and marked the beginning of a partnership that resulted in over 20 films.

The Householder was followed by Shakespeare Wallah (1965), another critically acclaimed film. There followed a series of films, including Roseland (1977), Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures (1978), The Europeans (1979), Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980), Quartet (1981), The Courtesans of Bombay (1983) and The Bostonians (1984). The Merchant Ivory production of Heat and Dust in 1983 won Jhabvala a BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay the following year.

She won her first Academy Award for her screenplay for A Room with a View (1986) and won a second in the same category for Howards End six years later.

In an interview for the British Film Institute, British actor James Wilby said that Jhabvala refused to write the screenplay of the 1987 film Maurice, despite being "the normal writer" for Merchant-Ivory films. The film was based on a posthumously published novel by E. M. Forster which depicted a gay relationship set in Edwardian England. Jhabvala did provide notes for Maurice, but said that she did not wish to write the screenplay as the novel was "sub-Forster and sub-Ivory."

The Merchant-Ivory duo was acknowledged by the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest collaboration between a director and a producer, but Jhabvala was a part of the trio from the very beginning. She introduced the composer Richard Robbins, who went on to score music for almost every production by Merchant Ivory beginning with The Europeans in 1979, to the duo after meeting him while he was the director of Mannes College of Music, New York. Madame Sousatzka (1988) was the one film she wrote that was not produced by Merchant Ivory.

Selected filmography Year Title Other notes 1963 The Householder screenplay, adapted from the novel by Jhabvala 1965 Shakespeare Wallah screenplay 1969 The Guru screenplay 1970 Bombay Talkie screenplay 1975 Autobiography of a Princess written by 1977 Roseland story and screenplay 1978 Hullabaloo Over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures written by 1979 The Europeans screenplay, adapted from the novel by Henry James 1980 Jane Austen in Manhattan written by, inserted libretto "Sir Charles Grandison" by Jane Austen 1981 Quartet screenplay, adapted from the novel by Jean Rhys 1983 Heat and Dust screenplay, adapted from the novel by Jhabvala 1984 The Bostonians screenplay, adapted from the novel by Henry James 1985 A Room with a View screenplay, adapted from the novel by E.M. Forster 1988 Madame Sousatzka screenplay, adapted from the novel by Bernice Rubens. Directed by John Schlesinger 1990 Mr. & Mrs. Bridge screenplay, adapted from the novels by Evan S. Connell (Mr. Bridge & Mrs. Bridge) 1992 Howards End screenplay, adapted from the novel by E.M. Forster 1993 The Remains of the Day screenplay, adapted from the novel by Kazuo Ishiguro 1995 Jefferson in Paris screenplay 1996 Surviving Picasso screenplay 1998 A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries screenplay, adapted from the novel by Kaylie Jones 2000 The Golden Bowl screenplay, adapted from the novel by Henry James 2003 Le Divorce co-written by James Ivory, adapted from the novel by Diane Johnson 2009 The City of Your Final Destination screenplay, adapted from the novel by Peter Cameron

Honours and awards Jhabvala was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the Diplomatic Service and Overseas List of the 1998 New Years Honours. She was granted a joint fellowship by BAFTA in 2002 with Ivory and Merchant.

She is the only person to have won both a Booker Prize and an Oscar.

Major film awards and nominations Academy Awards Year Category Film Result Ref.1986Best Adapted Screenplay A Room with a View 1992 Howards End 1993 The Remains of the Day

Golden Globe Awards YearCategoryFilmResultRef.1992Best Screenplay Howards End 1993 The Remains of the Day

British Academy Film Awards YearCategoryFilmResultRef. 1983Best Adapted Screenplay Heat and Dust 1986 A Room with a View 1992 Howards End 1993 The Remains of the Day

Writers Guild of America Awards YearCategoryFilmResultRef.1986 Best Adapted Screenplay A Room with a View 1992 Howards End 1993 The Remains of the Day Screen Laurel Award

Other awards 1975: Booker Prize – Heat and Dust

Personal life and death In 1951, Prawer married Cyrus Shavaksha Hormusji Jhabvala, an Indian Parsi architect and, later, head of the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi. Reacting to her death, Merchant Ivory Productions said that Jhabvala had "been a beloved member of the Merchant Ivory family since 1960, comprising one-third of our indomitable trifecta that included director James Ivory and the late producer Ismail Merchant" and that her death was "a significant loss to the global film community".

Literary works

Novels and novellas Year Title Other notes 1955 To whom she will : a novel Published in the United States as Amrita 1956 The Nature of Passion 1958 Esmond in India 1960 The Householder 1962 Get Ready for Battle 1965 A Backward Place 1972 A New Dominion published in the United States as Travelers 1975 Heat and Dust 1983 In Search of Love and Beauty 1987 Three Continents 1993 Poet and Dancer 1995 Shards of Memory

Short stories and collections

2008 The Teacher "The Teacher". The New Yorker. Volume:84. 28 July 2008

At the End of the Century: The Stories of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala''

Critical studies and reviews of Jhabvala's work

Anthologies and encyclopedias

Screenwriting

Other