Sad news: on 30 March 2022, the world lost a very special woman, Laura Del-Rivo, author and one of a kind.

I’m proud to have published Laura’s most recent book, Where is My Mask of an Honest Man Man? A fabulous short story collection, written in her inimitable style.

She burst onto the literary scene in 1961 with her debut novel The Furnished Room. It was hailed by Colin Wilson as ‘one of the significant novels of the 1960s’. In 1963 The Furnished Room was turned into a film, West 11, by Michael Winner.

Though for most of her life she ran a stall on Portobello Market. That’s how my brother (pictured with Laura in Kew Gardens) and I met and she casually told me she was an author as well.

Things always happened around Laura, for example, when a film crew turned up during a reading  I arranged for her in a room above the Mitre pub in Paddington, London. In the photo Laura is being interviewed by her friend and fellow author Cathi Unsworth.

Laura was also a proud mother to Jacob and dedicated her very last published short story ‘Birds and Words’ to her grandchildren Reuben and Paloma.

Laura’s unique view of the world will be missed. I leave you with a quote from Mask:

His eyes, set close together, were the colour of holy oil or dirty engine oil; untrustworthy and fervent as a hip descendant of a tribe of lying prophets and psychotic visionaries.