Mumbai: The renowned novelist and essayist Jenny Diski, who wrote a regular column about her diagnosis with inoperable cancer, breathed last on Thursday morning, at the age of 68.
Ian Patterson, Diski’s partner, announced the sad news on Twitter. “Sad news. My darling Jenny @diski died early this morning,” tweeted Patterson, to an avalanche of condolences from his fellow writers.
Sad news. My darling Jenny @diski died early this morning.
— Ian Patterson (@paftersnu) April 28, 2016
The author of novels, short stories, essays, memoirs and travelogues, Diski published 18 books. Only last week, her memoir In Gratitude was published, chronicling her life since she was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer in August 2014, and given “two or three years” to live by her doctor.
Diski’s memoir also tells the story of how she was taken in at the age of 15 by the novelist Doris Lessing, and of their relationship over the next 50 years, as Diski herself became a writer.
London Review of Books editor Mary-Kay Wilmers said Diski was “stylish and daring and more than most she did what she wanted to do and said what she wanted to say. She was also both fierce and understanding and that isn’t all that usual.”
“Under no circumstances is anyone to say that I lost a battle with cancer. Or that I bore it bravely. I am not fighting, losing, winning or bearing,” she writes in the diary, revealing how her first reaction on learning the news was to make a Breaking Bad joke: “We’d better get cooking the meth.”
Farewell to my dear cousin, the very lovely Jenny Diski. Kind, funny, encouraging and a truly brilliant writer.
— Jay Rayner (@jayrayner1) April 28, 2016
Fellow writers have paid Tribute to Diski’s lifetime of literary achievements and enduring legacy on Twitter. "Farewell to my dear cousin, the very lovely Jenny Diski. Kind, funny, encourage and a truly brilliant writer," wrote Jay Rayner. "RIP Jenny Diski, great writer and my favourite essayist. Those @LRB are immortal," added Agata Pyzik.
