Queen's Birthday Honours: Two novelists, an actor and a publisher recognised

Dame Marina Warner CBE a novelist, cultural historian, art critic, curator, librettist, broadcaster, essayist and critic, has been recognised for services to the humanities.

The acclaimed writer has been a Professor at Birkbeck College since 2014 and is a Distinguished Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford.

Dame Marina Warner. Picture: Nigel Sutton (Image: � Nigel Sutton)

A pioneer for women’s roles, Dame Marina is one of the few women Reith
Lecturers and the first woman President of the Royal Society of Literature.

In 2015 she was “astonished” to be made a Dame in the New Year’s Honours List for services to higher education and literary scholarship in recognition of her 40-year writing career.

The other recipient of the Companions of Honour is Sir Salman Rushdie, who has lived in Kentish Town.

The writer has authored 14 novels including The Satanic Verses; Midnight’s Children, which was awarded the Booker Prize in 1981.

He was knighted for services to literature in 2007.

Sir Rushdie spent years in hiding after the death sentence was issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, the supreme religious leader of Iran, following the publication of his novel The Satanic Verses in 1988.

Salman Rushdie (Image: Beowulf Sheehan/PEN American Center/Opale)

In 1991, he bought a home in The Bishops Avenue and commissioned an architect to turn it into a safe house.

For eight years he lived undetected inside the house, which had its own swimming pool and was designed to accommodate a team of four armed police officers who had their own rooms.

Others who received recognition in the Queen's Platinum year is Damien Lewis who was made a Commander of the British Empire for services to drama and charity,

The actor, who was born in St John’s Wood, and later lived in Tufnell Park with his wife Helen McCrory and their two children, was also recognised
for initiating the campaign to raise £1 million to provide food for NHS workers throughout Covid-19.

Founder of Daunt Books, James Daunt, was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to publishing.

The father-of-two, who has a home in Hampstead, became managing director of the bookshop chain Waterstones in 2011.

Since August 2019, Daunt has also been CEO of Barnes & Noble, the American bookstore chain.

He is known as "the man who saved Waterstones".