Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (born May 7, 1927) is an Academy Award winning screenwriter, best known as the writer for Merchant Ivory films.

She was born Ruth Prawer in Cologne, Germany to a Polish-Jewish father and German-Jewish mother. The family fled the Nazis in 1939, emigrating to Britain. During the war she lived in Hendon in London and experienced the Blitz, and became a British citizen in 1948. After studying English literature at the University of London, in 1951 she married Cyrus S. H. Jhabvala, an Parsi architect. The couple moved to New Delhi, India, where they had three daughters, and she began to write novels about her new life there: To Whom She Will (1955), Nature of Passion (1956), Esmond in India (1957), The Householder (1960) and Get Ready for the Battle (1962).

In 1963 she was approached by filmmakers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant to write a screenplay of The Householder, which was filmed by Merchant Ivory Productions in 1963 — the beginning of a partnership with that has so far produced over 20 films. Their next project Shakespeare Wallah (1965) was a critical success, followed by The Guru (1969), Bombay Talkie (1970) and Autobiography of a Princess (1975).

Jhabvala also continued to write novels as well as screenplays: Like Birds, Like Fishes (1963), A Backward Place (1966), A Stronger Climate (1968), An Experience of India (1972), A New Dominion (1972, USA: Travelers). In 1975 she won Britain's prestigious Booker Prize for her novel Heat and Dust. She now shared her time between New York and New Delhi, eventually becoming a US citizen. Her work with Merchant Ivory found greater success in the the late 1980s and early 1990s, with films such as A Room with a View (1985), Mr. and Mrs. Bridge (1990), Howards End (1992) and The Remains of the Day (1993).

Awards

• UK Booker Prize (1975) for Heat and Dust .
• MacArthur Foundation Award (1984).
• Academy Award in 1987 for A Room with a View.
• Academy Award in 1993 for Howards End.
• Academy Award nomination in 1994 for The Remains of the Day.
• Writers Guild of America's Screen Laurel Award (1994).

External links

• An interview on writing film adaptations.