Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1927-2013) was a German-born novelist and screenwriter who fled Nazi Germany with her Jewish family in 1939, becoming a British citizen in 1948 before marrying an Indian architect and moving to Delhi in 1951. She authored novels like Heat and Dust (Booker Prize 1975) and The Householder, often satirizing Indian society and manners, and wrote screenplays for over 20 Merchant Ivory films, winning Oscars for A Room with a View (1986) and Howards End (1992). After moving to New York in 1975 and becoming a U.S. citizen in 1986, she continued writing about cultural clashes and immigrant lives until her death.