Oscar and Booker winning writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, who died in the US today, had a strong India connection.
Born in Germany, she married Cyrus H Jhabvala, an Indian Parsi architect. In 1951 the couple moved to Delhi.
Twenty-four years later, she went to New York and divided her time between India and the US. In 1986, she became a naturalised citizen of the US.
In 1975, she was awarded the Booker Prize for her work "Heat and Dust", which views India through the lives of two English women living 50 years apart.
While living in India, she wrote novels about her life and experiences in the country -- "To Whom She Will" (1955), "Nature of Passion" (1956), "Esmond in India" (1957), "The Householder" (1960) and "Get Ready for the Battle" (1962).
In 1963, Jhabvala was approached by filmmakers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant to write a screenplay of her 1960 novel "The Householder".
Merchant once commented about his collaboration with Jhabvala, "It is a strange marriage we have at Merchant Ivory... I am an Indian Muslim, Ruth is a German Jew, and Jim is a Protestant American. Someone once described us as a three-headed god.
