Briton John Braine, Author of ‘Room at the Top,’ Dies

LONDON —  British novelist John Braine, author of “Room at the Top” and a leading figure in the 1950s “Angry Young Men” movement for social realism in the arts, has died, his family said today. He was 64.

Braine died in a London hospital where he was being treated for a burst stomach ulcer.

The former librarian was regarded as one of the “Angry Young Men,” along with playwright John Osborne and other writers from the working-class background of northern England.

He wrote 13 books but his first, “Room at the Top,” was the most successful and was made into a film which won an Oscar for the late French actress Simone Signoret.