Gloria Jean Watkins — the pioneering poet, feminist scholar, and activist better known by her pen name, bell hooks — has passed away at the age of 69. 

Sharing the news on social media today (December 15), the writer’s niece Ebony Motley writes: “The family of bell hooks is sad to announce the passing of our sister, aunt, great aunt and great great aunt. The author, professor, critic and feminist made her transition early this am from her home, surrounded by family and friends.”

“The family is honoured that Gloria received numerous awards, honours, and international fame for her works as poet, author, feminist, professor, cultural critic, and social activist,” adds the family in a subsequent statement. “We are proud to just call her sister, friend, confidant, and influencer.”

Born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1952, Watkins authored more than 30 books in her lifetime, borrowing her lower-case pseudonym from her maternal great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks.

hooks’ first major work, a groundbreaking history of Black feminism titled Ain’t I a Woman?, was published in 1981, going on to garner critical and academic acclaim. Two years later, she would earn a doctorate from the University of California, Santa Cruz, writing her dissertation on Toni Morrison’s fiction.

Over the course of her career, hooks published writing on subjects ranging from feminism and intersectionality, to capitalism, to love and art. Notable books include 1984’s Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, which cemented her place at the forefront of radical feminist thought, All About Love (2000), and We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity (2004).

Since 2004, she also taught at Kentucky’s Berea College, a liberal arts college without tuition fees. As a cultural critic, meanwhile, she unpicked everything from Beyoncé’s Lemonade — which she called “capitalist money making at its best” as part of a nuanced critique back in 2016 — to the influence of Madonna, Spike Lee, Jean Michel Basquiat, and more.

In the wake of her death, tributes have flooded in from many friends, activists, and authors influenced by her seminal work. “Oh my heart. bell hooks,” writes Roxane Gay in a Twitter post. “May she rest in power. Her loss is incalculable.”

“The passing of bell hooks hurts, deeply,” adds Ibram X. Kendi, author of How to be an Antiracist. “At the same time, as a human being I feel so grateful she gave humanity so many gifts. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism is one of her many classics. And All About Love changed me. Thank you, bell hooks. Rest in our love.”

In a statement shared with the Guardian, Margaret Atwood also pays tribute to hooks. “bell hooks embodied amazing courage and deeply felt intelligence,” the Handmaid’s Tale author says. “In finding her own words and power, she inspired countless others to do the same. Her dedication to the cause of ending ‘sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression’ was exemplary.”

“Her impact extended far beyond the United States: many women from all over the world owe her a great debt.”