Sir Tom Stoppard, one of the United Kingdom’s most celebrated playwrights and screenwriters, has died peacefully at home in Dorset, surrounded by his family, at the age of 88. His agents, United Agents, announced his passing, paying tribute to his remarkable contributions to literature. Sir Tom, who earned both an Oscar and a Golden Globe for his screenplay for the film Shakespeare in Love, will be profoundly missed. United Agents remarked, "He will be remembered for his works, for their brilliance and humanity, and for his wit, his irreverence, his generosity of spirit and his profound love of the English language. It was an honour to work with Tom and to know him."

Known for his playful erudition and intellectual pyrotechnics, Sir Tom Stoppard captivated audiences for over six decades with works that explored complex philosophical and political themes. He earned the rare distinction of having his own adjective, “Stoppardian,” entered into the Oxford English Dictionary, a testament to his unique style. His plays delighted in often improbable juxtapositions, such as philosophy and gymnastics in Jumpers (1972), early 19th-century landscape gardening and chaos theory in Arcadia (1993), and rock music, dissident Czech academics, and the love poetry of Sappho in Rock ’n’ Roll (2006). Sir Mick Jagger, a friend and admirer, posted a tribute to his "favourite playwright," stating, "He leaves us with a majestic body of intellectual and amusing work. I will always miss him."

Stoppard’s career as a playwright truly took off in the 1960s with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. This groundbreaking play, focusing on two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet, premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1966 before being developed by the National Theatre and later performed on Broadway. It garnered several awards, including four Tonys in 1968, among them the award for Best Play, establishing him as an international theatrical event.

His extensive body of stage work includes other critically acclaimed productions such as The Real Thing (1982), a meditation on infidelity and the unstable relationship between art and life, which Michael Billington ranked among the 101 greatest plays ever written. Premiered in the West End, it later moved to Broadway with Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close in starring roles. Stoppard himself considered Arcadia (1993) to be his best play, while The Invention of Love (1997), about the poet A.E. Housman, was his personal favourite. His semi-autobiographical work, Leopoldstadt (2020), set in the Jewish quarter of early 20th Century Vienna, won him an Olivier Award for Best New Play and four Tony Awards.

Beyond the stage, Sir Tom was a prolific screenwriter, earning an Oscar and a Golden Globe for Shakespeare in Love. He also adapted Leo Tolstoy's novel Anna Karenina for a 2012 film and contributed to screenplays for The Russia House and Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. His influence extended further through uncredited script-doctoring roles on blockbusters such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, and even Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. He also wrote extensively for television and radio throughout his career.

Born Tomáš Straussler in Czechoslovakia, his early life was marked by displacement. He was not yet two years old when his Jewish parents fled the Nazi invasion in 1939 for Singapore. Three years later, in 1942, he was evacuated to India with his mother and brother. Tragically, his father, an army medical officer, was left behind and died during the Japanese occupation. After his father’s death, his mother married British army major Kenneth Stoppard, who adopted the boys and moved the family to England after the war. Stoppard later learned that all four of his grandparents had been Jewish and had perished in Nazi concentration camps. Reflecting on his survival, he told US magazine Talk in 1999, "I feel incredibly lucky not to have had to survive or die. It’s a conspicuous part of what might be termed a charmed life." This personal history deeply informed his late masterpiece, Leopoldstadt.

Stoppard left school at 17, initially pursuing a career in journalism at the Western Daily Press in Bristol in 1954. He once stated, "My first ambition was to be lying on the floor of an African airport while machine-gun bullets zoomed over my typewriter. But I wasn’t much use as a reporter. I felt I didn’t have the right to ask people questions." He transitioned into becoming a theatre critic and writing plays for radio and TV, eventually moving to London. A Ford Foundation grant allowed him to escape to Berlin, where he devoted himself to developing the idea that would become Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

Throughout his illustrious career, Sir Tom received numerous honours and accolades. He was awarded a CBE in 1978 and was knighted by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 1997 for his services to literature. In 2013, he received the PEN Pinter Prize for his “determination to tell things as they are.” These are in addition to his multiple Tony Awards, Olivier Award, Oscar, and Golden Globe, cementing his status as one of the most decorated writers of his generation.

Despite his personal sociability, as a writer, Stoppard often operated as a loner, distinct from the left-leaning political sympathies of many of his playwriting contemporaries. Describing himself as a “timid libertarian” and “an honorary Englishman,” he was an admirer of Margaret Thatcher and, in 1984, signed a letter of support for the US invasion of Grenada. He frequently returned to his Central European origins in works anatomising the Cold War, including Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1977), commissioned by André Previn, and his great television play Professional Foul (1977), dedicated to his friend Václav Havel, who was frequently imprisoned at the time.

It was not until he was in his 50s that he discovered the full truth about his Jewish origins, and into his 80s before this knowledge fully metabolised into his poignant late-period masterpiece, Leopoldstadt. This play followed a once-prosperous Viennese family from 1899 to 1955, exploring themes of identity, memory, and the impact of history, and stands as a powerful testament to his profound artistry and personal journey.