UK literature dame dies

British novelist Beryl Bainbridge has died at the age of 77 after suffering from cancer.

She was most famed for having been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize five times and never having won, although she had won the Whitbread Novel Award twice and her book An Awfully Big Adventure had been made into a film with Hugh Grant.

Susan de Soissons, her publicist, said: 'She was one of the huge doyennes of literature and everyone adored her.'

Bainbridge had been working on a new book, her 19th, about the assassination of Bobby Kennedy called The Girl In The Polka-Dot Dress, her first book since 2001.

The darkly comic author of According to Queeney and Master Georgie among others had said in the past that she thought she would die at the age of 71, the same age her parents and grandparents died.

She was made a dame in 2000.