Author and screenwriter Fay Weldon dies aged 91

Author and screenwriter Fay Weldon has died “peacefully” at the age of 91, her agent Georgina Capel has confirmed.

The writer was best known for her novels exploring society and class. She penned more than 30, including The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (Sceptre) and Praxis (Coronet), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. 

Capel shared a family announcement which said: “It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Fay Weldon (CBE), author, essayist and playwright. She died peacefully this morning, 4th January 2023.”

Weldon’s screenwriting credits include “Upstairs Downstairs”, produced by ITV, and the BBC’s adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice”. She also worked in advertising as a copywriter for Ogilvy & Mather, and is credited with well-known slogans including “Go to Work on an Egg”. 

She was published by Head of Zeus in 2017 with The Death of a She-Devil, the follow-up to her 1983 novel The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, which was described by the Guardian as a “bawdy, feminist black comedy about a woman exacting revenge on her unfaithful husband.”

Her editor, Madeleine O’Shea, said: "I started working on Fay’s books as an assistant when I first joined Head of Zeus and later became her editor. Brilliantly clever and opinionated, Fay was full of energy, wisdom and mischief. She made me laugh, made me think and taught me a lot. To read her books is to hear her voice – varied, quick-witted and always entertaining."

Head of Zeus c.e.o. Nicolas Cheetham added: "Fay was like family. One of the first authors to join Anthony and I at Quercus, Corvus and then Head of Zeus, her books — historical fiction, ghost stories, dystopian SF — launched our lists."

More recently, Bolinda Audio secured audio rights for five of her backlist books from her agent Irene Baldoni of Georgina Capel Literary Agency.

Author Jenny Colgan, writing in the Guardian, said: "Fay was noisy in an era when women were expected to be quiet. She used her voice and took up space; she said what she felt, she brought energy and fun. And she was, as her book festival audiences could doubtless confirm, that very best and most attractive type of person: someone who is utterly, fearlessly and for ever true to themselves, to hell with the consequences. We will miss her."

An obituary in the Times said: "Large numbers of her female readers were delighted to find an author who could solace them in the more traumatic of their relations with the opposite sex. Feeling that she was speaking directly to them, they were rallied by her unflagging energy and her humour, and by the vicarious thrill of reading about whatever outlandish strategies her oppressed heroines adopted to survive this battle of the sexes. But while some literary critics loved her, finding her wickedly witty, others loathed her, labelling her garrulous and even dull."

It added: "Weldon kept frenziedly busy well into her seventies with public readings, controversial utterances at literary festivals and a new role, from 2006, as professor of creative writing at Brunel University. She had barely changed from her younger days: she still had the same icy-blue saucer eyes, the same moon face, the same high, pouchy cheekbones, the same bob of pale blonde hair. Her expression was still one of mischief masquerading as innocence."

The Telegraph also noted "though she was hailed as a feminist writer, Fay Weldon’s heroines did not conform to any ideal, battling stereotype". Its obituary said: "She understood that people do not live politically correct lives; that they get jealous and depressed and vengeful and go off with the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Her women may be oppressed, but they can also be vain, and are prone to overeating, plastic surgery, divorce, death, children, money, therapy and affairs. What appealed to Fay Weldon’s readers was not her feminism as such, but the feeling that she was on their side. Stories of how she had written her first novels in pencil at the kitchen table while children tumbled at her feet made her a favourite subject for women’s magazines. The highbrow media also loved her for her forthright views."

The news has been met with an outpouring of tributes on Twitter.

Authors including Reverend Richard Coles have expressed their sadness online. The crime mystery writer tweeted: “So sorry to see news of the death of Fay Weldon. I started out as an admirer of her fiction and I ended up taking her Holy Communion. She was amazing. May she rest in peace.”

The Booker Prize also tweeted: “We are saddened to hear that the brilliant Fay Weldon has died. As well as being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1979, she was a judge in 1983 and delivered one of the most memorable speeches in Booker history. Our thoughts are with her family and friends.”