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Rumer Godden (1907-98) was the acclaimed author of over sixty works of fiction and non-fiction for adults and children. Born in England, she and her siblings grew up in Narayanganj, India, and she later spent many years living in Calcutta and Kashmir. Several of her novels were made into films, including Black Narcissus, The Greengage Summer and The River, which was filmed by Jean Renoir. She was appointed OBE in 1993.
[Godden's] distinctive, poised and unsentimental books have never lost a shred of their almost hypnotic appeal -- Rosie Thomas * Guardian * It's a masterpiece of construction and utterly, realistically convincing - though it has a fairytale element too. Rumer Godden's books are admired for many qualities...but I think her greatest strength is her accurate, unsentimental portrayal of children. Lovejoy, Tip and Sparkey were so real to me that they have stayed alive in my head for more than 50 years...An Episode of Sparrows was the first book that made me cry when I was ten. I cried all over again at this recent reading of the story - and I closed the book with the same sense of total satisfaction -- Jacqueline Wilson * New Spectator on AN EPISODE OF SPARROWS * It would be impossible for a reader not to feel better from reading the story...her rich understanding of human nature, her humo[u]r and her beautiful prose inevitably leave one aglow * Chicago Tribune on AN EPISODE OF SPARROWS * [A]n extraordinarily gifted writer who manages to infuse her novels with a special magic of their own * Boston Herald on AN EPISODE OF SPARROWS * May well prove the book of the year for those who are not ashamed to weep over the printed page...author Godden here tries her deft writing hand at landscaping a child's heart * Time on AN EPISODE OF SPARROWS * It is a sentimental tale, well told, with an unlikely and entirely satisfactory ending * New Yorker on AN EPISODE OF SPARROWS * It has a dizzying cast of characters, radiating out from the inhabitants of a once-genteel London residential square to the residents of the teeming commercial streets beyond. * Horn Book on AN EPISODE OF SPARROWS * A gentle, poignant story, poetically conceived with a fairy godmother ending. Recommended for all * Library Journal on AN EPISODE OF SPARROWS * A Bizarre but Exquisite Novel . . . Rumer Godden Has Subtlety and Freshness, Humo[u]r and Charm -- Edith H. Walton * New York Times on BLACK NARCISSUS * A very remarkable novel indeed. One in a thousand * Observer on BLACK NARCISSUS * [Godden has] a genius for storytelling * Evening Standard * All [Godden's novels] have one important thing in common: They are beautifully and simply wrought by a woman of depth and sensitivity * Los Angeles Times * A small masterpiece, a near perfect account of how childhood has to come to an end and the serpent must enter the garden . . . In The River she celebrates a passion for the people, colours, sounds and even the smells of India . . . She evokes, in simple, flawless prose, a young girl's first encounters with jealousy, sex, guilt and death. * Spectator on THE RIVER *
