Brigid Brophy

BRIGID BROPHY d1995. British writer and campaigner for social reforms, including the rights of authors and animal rights. The first of her seven novels was Hackenfeller's Ape (1953), a story concerning the ethics of sending a captive ape "Percy" into space. Brophy's The Snow Ball (1964) is considered her masterpiece ; set at a costume ball on New Year's Eve, it is a glittering piece which weaves together sex, death and Mozart. In Transit (1969), is her most radical fiction in form and handling and was in the vanguard of gender-fluid literary conceptualisations. Her articles, together with frequent appearances on television in the 1960s–1970s, created the image of her as the enfant terrible of British literature. She was eloquent and forthright in her views in an era when such ideas were regarded as cranky or dangerous. She argued the case against the Vietnam war / against sexual repression / marriage and vivisection and asserted that compulsory religious education in state schools was unjustifiable. She died in Lincolnshire aged 66 on August 7th 1995