"On buses and trains, I always think about the inexhaustible variety of human genes. We see types, and occasionally twins, but never doubles. All faces are unique, and this is exhilarating, despite the increasingly plastic similarity of TV stars and actors."
English novelist, critic, and scholar whose fiction combined intellectual depth with formal experimentation. She received broad acclaim for works including Possession, which won the Booker Prize. Her career also included influential literary criticism and essays.