South Africa-born British author Justin Cartwright, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for In Every Face I Meet (1996) and won the 1998 Whitbread Book Award for Best Novel for Leading the Cheers, died December 3, the Bookseller reported. He was 73. The author of 13 novels, his most recent book, Up Against the Night, was published in 2015.
In a tribute to his friend of more than 50 years, Umbria Press publisher Alan Gordon Walker said Cartwright was "very kind and popular, and well regarded in the publishing community. He was a confident and generous person and had lots and lots of friends.... We met at Oxford in about 1966, we were at different colleges but we became friends and lived together briefly before he went into advertising and I went into publishing, later publishing some of his books."
Gordon Walker also noted that Cartwright's first novel, Interior, "was published to great acclaim in 1988. Look at It This Way was made into a three-part drama by the BBC.... The main themes of his books were about South Africa, some were set in Cornwall where we went on holiday. He was very good at drawing on characters, some [inspirations] of whom I knew in real life, some of which were composite. If there had been a Granta Best Young Writer list then, he would have been on it. Some of his really good books were not shortlisted for any awards. But I always felt he was fulfilled and he would write a book every two years."
Bloomsbury UK tweeted: "We are deeply saddened to hear the news of the passing of our beloved author Justin Cartwright. Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this time."