NOVELIST Anne Rice, best known for writing Interview with the Vampire, died yesterday, said her family. She was 80.

“In her final hours, I sat beside her hospital bed in awe of her accomplishments and her courage,” her son, Christopher, said in a post on Facebook.

Rice died of complications from a stroke.

Interview with the Vampire, published in 1976, was made into a movie starring Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise in 1994.

Rice wrote dozens of books, many of them in the Vampire series, and sold more than 150 million worldwide.

Her work, The Queen of the Damned, was also adapted into a film in 2002.

“The immensity of our family’s grief cannot be overstated. As my mother, her support for me was unconditional – she taught me to embrace my dreams, reject conformity and challenge the dark voices of fear and self-doubt,” her son wrote.

“As a writer, she taught me to defy genre boundaries and surrender to my obsessive passions.”

He said she will be interred at a private ceremony in New Orleans, and a public celebration will be held in the city next year, with “friends, readers and fans” invited. – AFP, December 12, 2021.