Academy Award-winning screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has died. She was 85.

According to a report from the Associated Press, Jhabvala died in New York after battling an unnamed illness.

Jhabvala got her start in the film industry in 1963, when she penned the screenplay adaptation for her novel The Householder. From then on, she collaborated with Merchant Ivory Productions on over 20 movies. She won best adapted screenplay Oscars for her work on both Howards End and A Room with a View.

In addition to her success as a screenwriter, Jhabvala was also an award-winning novelist. She began writing in the 1950s, with stories about life in India. She won the 1975 Booker Prize for her novel Heat and Dust, which tells the story of a woman who travels to India and falls in love with a Nawab.

(Image courtesy Cmacauley/Wikimedia Commons)