Elizabeth Bowen

Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and short-story writer, born in Dublin and raised partly in Ireland and England. She became known for fiction that combines psychological insight with precise social observation. Bowen published influential novels including *The Death of the Heart* (1938) and *The Heat of the Day* (1948), as well as acclaimed short-story collections. During the Second World War she lived in London, and the war’s pressures and moral ambiguities shaped much of her writing. Her work is also associated with the Anglo-Irish “Big House” tradition, drawing on her family’s estate, Bowen’s Court, in County Cork.