Overview
- Cooke died on Friday from cancer after being diagnosed earlier this year, according to tributes posted by her newspaper.
- She spent 25 years at the Observer, where colleagues described her as the backbone of the paper.
- Tim Adams, editor of the New Review, praised her fearlessness and range across commentary, interviews, social reporting, book reviews, food writing and foreign reportage.
- Former editor Jane Ferguson lauded her intellectual ballast and energy, while Sonia Sodha recalled her warmth, exceptional writing and loyalty to feminist colleagues; Simon Hattenstone said she would be hugely missed.
- Born in Sheffield and partly raised in Jaffa, she studied at Oxford, began at the Sunday Times, wrote for the New Statesman, published the 2023 collection Kitchen Person, and is survived by her husband, writer Anthony Quinn.