Gabriele Annan

She was born Gabriele Ullstein in Berlin, on 25 November 1921 in Berlin, the daughter of Louis-Ferdinand Ullstein (1863–1933), one of five Jewish brothers who owned a large newspaper, magazine, and book publishing business, and his wife Martha Ullstein, née Joel (1889–1974).[1] She was the only child from her father's second marriage, and until the age of 11, lived in a mansion in the Grünewald, now the British Ambassador's Berlin residence.[2]

She was educated at a progressive boarding school in England, and earned a degree in modern languages from Newnham College, Cambridge.[1][2]

After the war, she was a member of the Cambridge Ladies ski team, shared a London flat with Mary Blewett, and worked in advertising, coming up with the slogan, "All the Boy Scouts at their Jamborees/eat lashings of Batchelors wonderful peas."[2]

Annan wrote literary criticism for The Spectator and The New York Review of Books.[2] She was an early advocate for the work of Kazuo Ishiguro, Ian McEwan and Alan Hollinghurst.[2]

She was a film critic for The Spectator and the Sunday Telegraph, until in 1987, they asked her for a review of the third Care Bears movie, 'The Care Bears Adventure in Wonderland.[1]

She met her future husband when she was a graduate student at King's College, Cambridge, the British military intelligence officer, author, and academic Noel Annan, Baron Annan (1916-2000).[1]

They married on 30 June 1950, and had two daughters, Lucy, born in 1952, and Juliet, born in 1955.[1]

She died on 12 November 2013, of heart failure, at her flat in Eaton Square, London, and was survived by her two daughters.[1]