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.
Read more about this topic: Russell Hoban
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“Your faith an’ trouth yese never get
Nor our trew Love shall never twain
Till ye come within my bower
And kiss me both cheek and chin.
My mouth it is full cold, Margret,
It has the smell now of the ground;
An’ if I kiss thy com’ly mouth
Thy life days will not be long.”
—Unknown. Clerk Saunders (l. 109–116)
“We are conscious of an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers. It is reptile and sensual, and perhaps cannot be wholly expelled; like the worms which, even in life and health, occupy our bodies. Possibly we may withdraw from it, but never change its nature. I fear that it may enjoy a certain health of its own; that we may be well, yet not pure.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)