Charlotte Raven: 1969 – 2025

We are deeply saddened by the news of the death of the author and journalist Charlotte Raven.

Charlotte Raven was a celebrated columnist, author and editor, perhaps best known for her journalism in the 1990s, when she wrote regularly for the Guardian and New Statesman. She was a contributor to the Modern Review, and editor of the relaunched version in 1997.

She wrote her memoir, Patient 1: Forgetting and Finding Myself, describing her diagnosis with Huntington’s Disease in her mid-thirties, with characteristic bravery. Published by Jonathan Cape in 2021, the book was written with the help of Professor Ed Wild, a Huntington’s specialist, and Charlotte’s brother Dan.

It was described by The Times as ‘a phenomenal achievement… traumatic, truthful and brave’. She also became a vocal spokesperson regarding Huntington’s Disease and advocate for assisted dying.

Bea Hemming, Deputy Publishing Director of Jonathan Cape, says: ‘We are deeply saddened by the news of the death of the great Charlotte Raven. She was a daringly original writer and thinker, as fearless, candid, stylish and funny in life as she was on the page. In Patient 1, she left us a memoir of devastating insight, as she faced her diagnosis with serious degenerative illness. But she was determined never to write a “misery memoir” and, instead, in Patient 1 she produced a work of defiance, wit, intelligence and self-lacerating honesty. Our thoughts are with her family and friends, who are so much at the heart of that book.’