World famous for her novel Interview with a vampire, writer Anne Rice died Saturday night at the age of 80.
Rice died of complications from a stroke, her son Christopher Rice said on the author’s Facebook page and Twitter page.
“In his final hours, I stood by his side in the hospital, admiring his accomplishments and his courage,” he wrote.
In 1976, Anne Rice published the novel Interview with a vampire, which was adapted for theaters in 1994 in a feature film starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt.
This novel, recounting the interview granted by the vampire Louis de Pointe du Lac to journalist Daniel Malloy, is the first in a series of 13 episodes known under the title of Chronicles of the vampires.
During her career, Anne Rice has written over 30 books which have sold over 150 million copies worldwide.
In an interview with the French review Telerama in 2016, Anne Rice admitted her surprise at her worldwide success. “I didn’t think the mainstream would embrace something so special. I am unable to explain this success. ”
Born Howard Allen Frances O’Brien in 1941, she grew up in New Orleans, which she often staged in her novels. His father worked at the Post Office, but he wrote fiction and sculpted in his spare time. Her older sister, Alice Borchardt, has also published horror and fantasy novels.
Raised in an Irish Catholic family, Rice wrote often about her spiritual experience, especially without her memoir published in 2008. Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession. In 2010, she announced that she was renouncing Christianity. “I refuse to be against homosexuality, I refuse to be against feminism. I refuse to oppose artificial birth control. Later, she preferred to define herself as “an independent believer” who admitted that he could have nothing after death.
Anne Rice will be buried on an undisclosed date in a private ceremony at the family mausoleum in New Orleans, the statement said. A public commemoration will take place next year.