Anthony Minghella, the film director whose work included The English Patient and Truly, Madly, Deeply, died yesterday, aged 54, after suffering a haemorrhage at Charing Cross Hospital in London following an operation last week for a growth in his neck.

Julie Myerson's novels have always tackled edgy subject matter but in writing her latest, she was seeking to escape from a trauma that was horribly close to home

As the creator of a silent film picturing nothing but David Beckham sleeping and another work consisting of a musician playing an invisible cello, the Turner Prize-nominated artist Sam Taylor-Wood may not be an obvious choice as director of a full-length movie based on a novel heavy on dialogue and gut-wrenching tragedy.