Nicholas Evans, renowned for penning The Horse Whisperer, died of a heart attack at the age of 72.
The death of the best-selling novelist occurred unexpectedly on Tuesday, his agency said today. United Agents published a statement this morning announcing the tragic death of famous best-selling novelist Nicholas Evans, who died of a heart attack on Tuesday of this week at the age of 72.
The Horse Whisperer, which was released in 1995, sold around 15 million copies worldwide and was the best-selling book in 20 countries.
The novel was adapted into a film starring and produced by Robert Redford, Scarlett Johansson, and Sam Neill due to its immense success. The Loop, The Smoke Jumper, The Divide, and The Brave are Evans’s subsequent four books.
Born in Worcestershire in 1950, he attended Oxford University to study law before graduating with first-class honours.
Before switching to television, he was a journalist at the Evening Chronicle in Newcastle.
Evans made videos on American politics and the Middle East for the news program Weekend World.
He started creating art documentaries in 1982 and has since worked on several television and theatrical features.
But when he was living in the south-west of England, he met a blacksmith and learnt about horse whisperers who, according to legend, can cure traumatized horses.
The concept spawned the best-selling book, which has been translated into 36 languages at present.
In a November 2020 article for The Daily Mail, he stated of the book, “Usually, writing a novel is like climbing a mountain: it’s hard and difficult, and it’s easy to get lost.”
“However, in The Horse Whisperer, the plot was laid out before me like stepping stones over a river.” It was as simple as putting one foot in front of the other.
I realized I was conveying a kind of story that humans have been telling one another for millennia.
It is about wonderful individuals getting sucked into a whirlwind of darkness and suffering. Ultimately, a hand of love reaches out to save and clear them. Consider the angel who saved Daniel from the lions’ cave.
For the benefit of those who have not yet read the book, I will not elaborate more. I would just remark that this is not a book about horses. It’s about how simple it is for each of us to get lost, confused, and disconnected from the things that really count.
And how, if we are fortunate, a selfless and pure love may rescue us.
In 2008, Evans and his family had a near-fatal response after eating the poisonous webcap mushroom, which they mistook for safe ceps.
Following the tragedy, the author, his singer-songwriter wife Charlotte, and her brother and sister-in-law all had renal failure and underwent dialysis.
After almost three years on a waiting list, Mr. Evans was rescued when his only daughter donated him one of her kidneys via a live donation.
Evans, then 61 years old, said that his daughter’s donation, which occurred in July at Hammersmith Hospital, had given him his life back.
Evans gathered the mushrooms himself from his brother-in-13,000-acre law’s Scottish Highlands estate, prepared them, and then served them to his family.
While living with his brother-in-law and sister-in-law, Sir Alastair Gordon-Cumming and Lady Louisa, he gathered a crop of poisonous webcaps by accident.
After buttering and parsleying them, he gave them to his wife Charlotte and guests for supper. The next day, everyone was admitted to the hospital.