Irish author Maeve Binchy dies aged 72

LONDON - The Associated Press

Bestselling Irish author Maeve Binchy, one of Ireland’s most popular writers has died in Dublin after a brief illness. AP Photo

Bestselling Irish author Maeve Binchy, one of Ireland’s most popular writers who sold more than 40 million books worldwide, has died in Dublin after a brief illness, according to Irish media reports. She was 72 years old.
 
She was best known for her depictions of small-town Irish life.
 
The Irish Times, her former employer, told the AP it had spoken to Binchy’s family and said the acclaimed author had died in a Dublin hospital on Monday with her husband Gordon Snell by her side. Binchy, author of “Circle of Friends” and “Tara Road,” wrote 16 novels, four collections of short stories, a play and a novella. Her work landed her on The New York Times’ bestseller list and in Oprah’s Book Club.
 
Describing her childhood in Ireland, Binchy wrote on her official website that she was “full of enthusiasms, mad fantasies, desperate urges to be famous and anxious to be a saint.”
 
After graduating from University College Dublin, Binchy worked as a teacher before becoming a journalist, columnist and editor at the Irish Times. She later moved to England, where she became the newspaper’s London editor in the early 1970s.