Asked last year what it felt like to be hailed as a pioneer, the writer and activist Maureen Duffy, who has died aged 92, replied: “It’s a funny old thing. I suppose I’ll get used to it.” Yet there could not have been a more deserving winner for the inaugural RSL Pioneer prize, set up by Bernardine Evaristo and the Royal Society of Literature to honour the achievements of British writers aged over 60.
The author of more than 60 works – spanning novels, non-fiction and poetry as well as dramas for theatre and TV – Duffy was also a campaigner for the rights of animals and of her fellow authors, to whom she was famously encouraging. Her presence at literary events, her blue eyes surveying the scene over a smart three-piece suit, attested to an equally dogged activism.
