CARDIFF, Wales, March 11 (UPI) -- Welsh Novelist Alice Thomas Ellis, whose most famous work is "The Sin Eater," has died at the age of 72 of lung cancer complications.
Ellis used her fiction to explore tensions among individuals, families, Wales and Christianity. By the end of her life she had written nearly 30 books.
A devout Roman Catholic, her non-fiction often railed against the church hierarchy's attempts to embrace secular beliefs and progressive policies, the Western Mail reported Friday.
When she used her column in the Catholic Herald to lambaste Archbishop of Liverpool Derek Worlock for his reforms, she was fired.
After a conversion to Christianity, she entered a convent but had to leave after a back injury. She then married publisher Colin Haycraft and became a popular fixture in London high society.
Ellis, who died Tuesday, is survived by four sons and a daughter.
