Bernice Rubens

Bernice Rubens was a Booker Prize-winning Welsh novelist. She was of Russian Jewish descent and born in Cardiff, Wales where she attended Cardiff High School. She came from a very musical family, both her brothers becoming well-known classical musicians. She was married to Rudi Nassauer, a wine merchant and novelist. They had two daughters, Rebecca and Sharon. In the 1960s they owned 10 Compayne Gardens, NW3, where the poet Jon Silkin rented the attic storey and sublet rooms to David Mercer, later a prolific West End and TV playwright, and Malcolm Ross-Macdonald, later an equally prolific... writer of historical novels. Her 1962 novel, Madame Sousatzka, was made into a film in 1988, with Shabana Azmi and Shirley MacLaine. Her 1975 novel, I Sent a Letter To My Love, was made into a film in 1980 by Moshe Mizraki, starring Simone Signoret and Jean Rochefort. Her 1985 novel, Mr Wakefield's Crusade, was adapted for television by the BBC in 1992, starring Peter Capaldi and Michael Maloney.
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