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About Dame Muriel Spark
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 MURIEL SPARK, D.B.E, C.LITT., was born in Edinburgh in 1918.
A poet and novelist, she wrote short stories, radio plays, children’s books, reviews and essays, as well as critical biographies of nineteenth century literary figures including Emily Bronté and Mary Shelley.
Her play Doctors of Philosophy was performed in London in 1962 and was published in 1963 . In 1963 she described in fictional form what is was to be half Gentile and half Jewish in her story The Gentile Jewesses, which was much enjoyed by her mother and son at the time. She later examined her feelings more profoundly in her novel The Mandelbaum Gate, which won the JamesTait Black Memorial Prize, and the Yorkshire Post, Book of the Year 1966. Her early career was one of grinding poverty and hard work, writing poems and essays for literary magazines in London. She was appointed General Secretary of the Poetry Society and Editor of the Poetry Review. There she endured violent opposition from the old guard but made many friends of the poets, whom she insisted on paying for their work. Eventually she was forced to leave, choosing to be fired and therefore paid as opposed to resigning without payment. In all this time she had a small son to support with the help of her parents in Scotland.
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Muriel Spark is best known for her many concise and witty novels. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Memento Mori, The Girls of Slender Means, Symposium, Loitering with Intent and A Far Cry from Kensington are some among many other successful titles.
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She published several volumes of poetry and short stories; and was awarded prizes from early youth until her death in 2006. These included the prestigious Ingersol FoundationT.S.Eliot Prize (1992), The Italia Prize for the dramatic radio musical of The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1962) and Nomination (2005) for the Best International Man Booker Prize.
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She was honoured with the title of Dame Commander of the British Empire (1993) and in France was made Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (1996). In 1963 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 1995 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. She became an Honorary Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1978.
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She was a Doctor of the University of Heriot Watt, where she had taught a course as a young girl. The universities of Edinburgh, Oxford and London, among others, made her a D.Litt. But perhaps her most-prized award came from her own Italian home town who elected her their first Honorary Citizen of the historic Civitella in Val di Chiana.
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“We consider the wording to be the most tactful.” He stressed the word “tactful” with the result that tact was temporarily cancelled from the contract-signing scene”
- Loitering with Intent |
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