Russell Hoban - Later Life

Later Life

The last novel published in his lifetime was Angelica Lost and Found (October 2010), in which the hippogriff from Girolamo da Carpi's Ruggiero Saving Angelica breaks free from the 16th-century painting to search for Angelica in 21st-century San Francisco.

Hoban died on 13 December 2011. He had once ruefully observed that death would be a good career move: “People will say, 'yes, Hoban, he seems an interesting writer, let’s look at him again’.” He was cremated in Mortlake Crematorium, London on 4 January 2012.

Soonchild, illustrated by Alexis Deacon, was published posthumously by Walker Books in March 2012. Later in the year Walker Books published one more new book by Hoban: Rosie's Magic Horse, illustrated by Quentin Blake.