Brookner's death was announced by a simple message in the Times newspaper, which said she died peacefully in her sleep on March 10 in London:

Brookner was a bestselling author who wrote 25 books and won the Booker Prize in 1984 for her fourth novel "Hotel du Lac".

She was born in Herne Hill, a suburb of London. Her father was a Polish immigrant to Britain and her mother was a singer whose father had emigrated from Poland.

Brookner received a BA in History from King's College in 1949 and went on to earn a doctorate in Art History from the University of London. She was the first woman to be named as Slade professor of art at Cambridge University in 1967.

She began writing when she was in her 50's after a career as an art historian.

Her first novel, "A Start in Life", was published in 1981 when she was 53 years old. She then published a novel roughly every year.

Her most recent work, the novella "At The Hairdresser's", was published as an e-book in 2011.

In 1990 Brookner was made a Commander of the British Empire.

Brookner was a very private individual who shied away from interviews and book signings.

Tributes have come from writers, readers and publishers, including Max Porter, Senior Editor at Granta Books:

and novelist Linda Grant: