Joanna Trollope, who wrote lesbian book A Village Affair, dies aged 82

Best selling author Joanna Trollope, who wrote lesbian novel A Village Affair, has died aged 82.

The English author, who penned more than 30 works during her writing career including The Rector’s Wife and Other People’s Children, published novels both under her own name and the pseudonym Caroline Harvey.

She was nicknamed the ‘Queen of the Aga Saga’, a somewhat cosy genre named after the AGA cooker which became popular in country homes, as her novels focused family dilemmas, romance and betrayal in middle-class English villages – although this was a label she rejected as “patronising” and instead asserted her fiction was “quite subversive, quite bleak”.

Trollope’s daughters, Louise and Antonia, described her as a “beloved and inspirational mother” who passed away “peacefully at her Oxfordshire home” on Thursday (11 December).

James Gill, Trollope’s literary agent, said in a statement: “It is with great sadness that we learn of the passing of Joanna Trollope, one of our most cherished, acclaimed and widely enjoyed novelists.

“Joanna will be mourned by her children, grandchildren, family, her countless friends and – of course – her readers.”

One of Trollope’s best known novels is 1989’s A Village Affair, which was adapted into a made-for-television film by ITV and released in 1995, starring Sophie Ward and Kerry Fox.

The novel focuses on married woman Alice, who moves to a quaint village with her husband and three children, only to find an unexpected connection with Clodagh Unwin, the daughter of a local rich landowner.

“The Grey House is the final piece in the jigsaw of Alice Jordan’s perfect life. It seems to be the ultimate achievement of her outwardly happy marriage – a loyal, if dull husband, three children, two cars and now the house. So why does she feel as if something is missing?” the synopsis reads.

“As Alice and her family settle themselves into village life, the something missing becomes something huge and then breaks, scandalizing the village and opening up old wounds.

“But because of it, Alice begins to feel that there is hope and humour and understanding and compassion in the new life she must build for herself.”

Born on 9 December 1943 in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, Trollope attended St Hugh’s College, Oxford where she studied English before working in the Foreign Office and as a teacher. She became a full-time author in 1980.

In 1996 she received an OBE for services to charity, and was made a CBE in 2019 for services to literature.

She was a distant relative of author Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope, who wrote 46 novels in his lifetime.