Aiding and Abetting

Biographie de Muriel Spark

Muriel Spark was born and educated in Edinburgh, and has been active in the field of creative writing since 1950, when she won a short-story competition in the Observer. Her many subsequent novels and stories, such as Memento Mori, The Girls of Slender Means, The Only Problem, A Far Cry from Kensington, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (adapted successfully for both film and theatre), Reality and Dreams (winner of a Scottish Arts Council 1997 Spring Book Award), and Aiding and Abetting, have brought pleasure to readers thoughout the world. She has also written plays, poems, children's books and biographies of Mary Shelley, Emily Brontë and John Masefield. Her first autobiographical volume, Curriculum Vitae, was published in 1992. She was elected C.Litt. in 1992 and was awarded the DBE in 1993. Among many other awards she has received the Italia Prize, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the FNAC Prix Etranger, the Saltire Prize, the Ingersoll T. S. Eliot Award, the David Cohen British Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement and the Golden Pen Award from International PEN. Dame Muriel was elected an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1978 and Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France in 1996.