She started publishing novels at age 60. For that alone, you’d have to love her. But even better, the books are brilliant, thought-provoking, witty, and refreshingly, wonderfully brief.

Read The Blue Flower first (yes, it’s about an 18th-century German poet, but get past that — it’s funny, romantic, and beautiful), then work your way slowly through the rest of her nine slender novels.

The note above was written in response to a letter sent by a bookseller, offering old books on Cairo.

I just ordered a used copy of her collected letters. I’ll let you know what I think.

images: The Guardian, Charles Lambert, litro, book depository