Literature mourns the departure of an internationally renowned author Anne RiceThe mind is behind Interview with the vampire.

The gothic fiction writer died on Saturday, Dec. 11, two months after she celebrated her 80th birthday. Anne’s son, ChristopherAuthor he also announced the passing of his mother.

“It breaks my heart to bring you this sad news,” he wrote on Anne’s social media accounts. Anne died earlier tonight due to stroke complications. Her death occurred almost nineteen years ago on the anniversary of Stan’s father’s passing.

Anne’s husband and Christopher’s father, poet and painter Stan RiceAnne, who was 60 years old at the time of her death from brain cancer in 2002, passed away. Anne is also preceded in death by their daughter Michele, who died of leukemia at age 5.

Christopher said, “The magnitude of our family’s grief cannot 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. She taught me, as a writer and a poet, to ignore genre limits and to surrender to my obsessions.