in full Margaret Rumer Godden Haynes-Dixon
born Dec. 10, 1907, Eastbourne, Sussex, Eng.
died Nov. 8, 1998, Dumfries, Scot.
British writer.
She grew up in India, and after attending school in Britain she returned to spend many years there. Her novel Black Narcissus (1939; film, 1947) brought her popular success. The story of a group of English nuns in the Himalayas, it deals with her recurring themes of cultural conflicts and obsessive love. She often wrote about children, as in The River (1946; filmed by Jean Renoir in 1951) and The Greengage Summer (1958; film, 1961), and wrote almost two dozen books for children.