 dame cicely isabel fairfield dbe (21 december 1892 â 15 march 1983), known as rebecca west, or dame rebecca west, was a british author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. a prolific, protean author who wrote in many genres, west was committed to feminist and liberal principles and was widely considered to be among the important public intellectuals of the 20th century. she reviewed books for the times, the new york herald tribune, the sunday telegraph, and the new republic, and she was a correspondent for the bookman. her major works include black lamb and grey falcon (1941), on the history and culture of yugoslavia; a train of powder (1955), her coverage of the nuremberg trials, published originally in the new yorker; the meaning of treason, later the new meaning of treason, a study of the trial of the british fascist william joyce and others; the return of the soldier, a modernist world war i novel; and the "aubrey trilogy" of autobiographical novels, the fountain overflows, this real night, and cousin rosamund. time called her "indisputably the world's number one woman writer" in 1947. she was made cbe in 1949, and dbe in 1959, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to british letters. ==biography== rebecca west was born cicely isabel fairfield in 1892 in london and grew up in a home full of intellectual stimulation, political debate, lively company, books and music. her mother, isabella, a scotswoman, was an accomplished pianist but did not pursue a musical career after her marriage to charles fairfield. charles, an anglo-irish journalist of considerable reputation but financial incompetence, deserted his family when cicely was 8 years old. he never rejoined them and died impoverished and alone in a boarding house in liverpool in 1906, when cicely was 14. the rest of the family moved to edinburgh, s
1892_births 1983_deaths British_essayists British_novelists British_suffragists British_travel_writers British_women_writers Burials_at_Brookwood_Cemetery Dames_Commander_of_the_Order_of_the_British_Empire Deists English_anti-communists English_anti-fascists Fellows_of_the_American_Academy_of_Arts_and_Sciences Feminist_writers Modernist_women_writers National_Council_for_Civil_Liberties_people People_educated_at_George_Watson\'s_College People_of_the_Edwardian_era Women_essayists Women_novelists Women_of_the_Victorian_era Women_travel_writers Writers_from_London