"We talk about feelings. And about sex. And about bodies, and their gratification, violation, repair, decoration, deferred, maybe permanently deferred, mortality. Feelings are a bodily thing, and respecting them is called, is, kindness."
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.