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Sue Townsend, Bestselling Author, Dies Of Stroke

Sue Townsend, the beloved author, playwright, and journalist, has died after suffering a stroke at the age o 68. Townsend created the well-regarded and best-selling books featuring Adrian Mole, an ang...
Sue Townsend, Bestselling Author, Dies Of Stroke
Written by Amanda Crum
  • Sue Townsend, the beloved author, playwright, and journalist, has died after suffering a stroke at the age o 68.

    Townsend created the well-regarded and best-selling books featuring Adrian Mole, an angst-ridden teen who spoke to U.K. youths his own age during the ’80s. The books inspired television movies after starting life as a play, and went on to become a rousing success.

    “Now I realise that Adrian is simply a type of person who exists everywhere, regardless of nationality,” Townsend said once. “Shy, thoughtful, oversensitive, repressed. In a hut in the Gambia at this moment, there’s an Adrian Mole getting on people’s tits.”

    Townsend suffered from diabetes and was registered blind in 2001, a struggle that haunted her every day.

    “You can’t underestimate what a devastating blow it is,” she said. “People would say, ‘You’re so good about it.’ But inside… to me not being able to read, I still haven’t come to terms with it yet.”

    Townsend may have been a best-selling author, but she was also a talented journalist who contributed to Observer, the Sunday Times and the Daily Mail. However, that doesn’t mean she ever forgot her first love: books.

    “I do think that books, good books, free you,” she said in an interview. “They make you feel a citizen of the world and things like class, sex and age don’t matter. They’re the greatest leveller.”

    Today, Twitter is mourning the loss of such a bright light in the literary world.

    Image via YouTube

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