Ruth P. Jhabvala | Screenwriter, 85

Posted: Thursday, April 4, 2013, 3:01 AM

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, 85, a German-born novelist whose fiction was set largely in India and who gained her greatest acclaim as a two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter with the Merchant-Ivory filmmaking team, died Wednesday, April 3, at her home in New York City.

She had a pulmonary disorder, said James Ivory, the film director who worked with Mrs. Jhabvala since the early 1960s.

Producer Ismail Merchant, director Ivory, and Mrs. Jhabvala formed what would become one of the most enduring creative teams in moviemaking history.

Together for more than 40 years, until Merchant's death in 2005, they made more than 20 films, including several genteel dramas based on the novels of Henry James and E.M. Forster.

Mrs. Jhabvala won Oscars in 1987 and 1993 for her screenplays of A Room With a View and Howards End. She was nominated for a third Academy Award for screenwriting for The Remains of the Day (1993), from a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro.

She is survived by her husband, Cyrus S.H. Jhabvala, an Indian-born architect she met in London; three daughters, Renana Jhabvala of India, Ava Wood of England, and Firoza Jhabvala of Los Angeles; and six grandchildren. - Washington Post