Jeanette Winterson Explained

Jeanette Winterson
Birth Date:27 August 1959
Birth Place:Manchester, England, UK
Occupation:Writer, journalist, Professor at the University of Manchester
Nationality:British
Period:1985–present
Genre:Fiction, children's fiction, journalism, science fiction
Notableworks:Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Partner:Peggy Reynolds
(1990–2002)
Alma Mater:St. Catherine's College, Oxford

Jeanette Winterson (born 27 August 1959) is an English author.

Her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was a semi-autobiographical novel about a lesbian growing up in an English Pentecostal community. Other novels explore gender polarities and sexual identity and later ones the relations between humans and technology. She broadcasts and teaches creative writing. She has won a Whitbread Prize for a First Novel, a BAFTA Award for Best Drama, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the E. M. Forster Award and the St. Louis Literary Award, and the Lambda Literary Award twice. She has received an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to literature, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her novels have been translated to almost 20 languages.[1]

Early life and education

Winterson was born in Manchester and adopted by Constance and John William Winterson on 21 January 1960.[2] She grew up in Accrington, Lancashire, and was raised in the Elim Pentecostal Church. She was raised to become a Pentecostal Christian missionary, and she began evangelising and writing sermons at the age of six.[3] [4]

By the age of 16, Winterson had come out as a lesbian and left home.[5] [6] [7] She soon after attended Accrington and Rossendale College,[8] and supported herself at a variety of odd jobs while studying English at St. Catherine's College, Oxford (1978–1981).[9]

Career

After she moved to London, she took assorted theatre work, including at the Roundhouse, and wrote her debut novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a semi-autobiographical story about a sensitive teenage girl rebelling against convention. One job Winterson applied for was as an editorial assistant at Pandora Press,[10] a feminist imprint newly founded in 1983 by Philippa Brewster, and in 1985 Brewster published Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which won the Whitbread Prize for a First Novel. Winterson adapted it for television in 1990. Her novel The Passion was set in Napoleonic Europe.[11]

Winterson's subsequent novels explore the boundaries of physicality and the imagination, gender polarities, and sexual identities, and have won several literary awards. Her stage adaptation of The PowerBook in 2002 opened at the Royal National Theatre, London. She also bought a derelict terraced house in Spitalfields, East London, which she refurbished into an occasional flat and a ground-floor shop, Verde's, to sell organic food.[12] [13] [14] In January 2017, she discussed closing the shop when a spike in rateable value, and so business rates, threatened to make the business untenable.[15] [16] [17]

In 2009, Winterson donated the short story "Dog Days" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, covering four collections of UK stories by 38 authors. Her story appeared in the Fire collection.[18] She also supported the relaunch of the Bush Theatre in London's Shepherd's Bush. She wrote and performed work for the Sixty Six Books project, based on a chapter of the King James Bible, along with other novelists and poets including Paul Muldoon, Carol Ann Duffy, Anne Michaels and Catherine Tate.[19] [20]

Winterson's 2012 novella The Daylight Gate, based on the 1612 Pendle Witch Trials, appeared on their 400th anniversary. Its main character, Alice Nutter, is based on the real-life woman of the same name. The Guardians Sarah Hall describes the work:

"the narrative voice is irrefutable; this is old-fashioned storytelling, with a sermonic tone that commands and terrifies. It's also like courtroom reportage, sworn witness testimony. The sentences are short, truthful – and dreadful.... Absolutism is Winterson's forte, and it's the perfect mode to verify supernatural events when they occur. You're not asked to believe in magic. Magic exists. A severed head talks. A man is transmogrified into a hare. The story is stretched as tight as a rack, so the reader's disbelief is ruptured rather than suspended. And if doubt remains, the text's sensuality persuades."[21]

In 2012, Winterson succeeded Colm Tóibín as Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.[22]

Her 2019 novel, Frankissstein: A Love Story, was longlisted for the Booker Prize.[23]

In October 2023, Jonathan Cape published Night Side of the River. Suzi Feay, writing for Literary Review, said: "In these enjoyable tales Winterson has ably served the genre, while also sketching some unsettling future directions the ghost story might take".[24]

Awards and recognition

Personal life

Winterson came out as a lesbian at the age of 16.[5] Her 1987 novel The Passion was inspired by her relationship with Pat Kavanagh, her literary agent.[35] From 1990 to 2002, Winterson had a relationship with BBC radio broadcaster and academic Peggy Reynolds.[36] After that ended, Winterson became involved with theatre director Deborah Warner. In 2015, she married psychotherapist Susie Orbach, author of Fat is a Feminist Issue.[37] The couple separated in 2019.[38]

Bibliography

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Jeanette Winterson . 2023-12-31 . international literature festival berlin . en-US.
  2. Book: Winterson, Jeanette . Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? . . 2011 . 978-0-8021-2010-6 . New York, NY . 17–18 . 16488820W . 2023-11-01.
  3. News: Power surge . London . The Guardian . Libby . Brooks . 2 September 2000 . 11 December 2016 . 12 October 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20081012165916/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2000/sep/02/fiction.jeanettewinterson . live .
  4. Eide . Marian . 2001 . Passionate Gods and Desiring Women: Jeanette Winterson, Faith, and Sexuality . International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies . 6 . 4 . 279–291 . 10.1023/A:1012217225310 . 141012283.
  5. Web site: Smith . Patricia Juliana . Winterson, Jeanette (b. 1959) . . 23 November 2002 . 4 December 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20030523184702/http://www.glbtq.com/literature/winterson_j.html . 23 May 2003 . dead.
  6. News: Jaggi . Maya . Redemption songs . . 28 May 2004 . 23 November 2019 . 15 January 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130115033122/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/may/29/fiction.jeanettewinterson . live .
  7. News: Gold . Tanya . Page in the Life: Jeanette Winterson . . 28 October 2011 . 23 November 2019 . 23 November 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20191123142909/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8853265/Page-in-the-Life-Jeanette-Winterson.html . live .
  8. News: Amazon sorry for book sales error which hit Accrington author . . 14 April 2009 . 9 December 2016 . 26 August 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190826064052/https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/4288955.amazon-sorry-for-book-sales-error-which-hit-accrington-author/ . live .
  9. Web site: Biography . jeanettewinterson.com . 2000 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120325155501/http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=207 . 25 March 2012.
  10. Web site: Literature Jeanette Winterson. British Council. 21 February 2024.
  11. Jeanette Winterson, The Art of Fiction No. 150 . 1997 . . Bilger . Audrey . 2023-11-01 . 145 . Audrey Bilger . https://web.archive.org/web/20230615050717/https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1188/the-art-of-fiction-no-150-jeanette-winterson . 2023-06-15 . live.
  12. News: Kate Kellaway . If I Was a Dog, I'd Be a Terrier . The Observer . 25 June 2006 . 6 December 2008 . London . 23 September 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140923022820/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jun/25/jeanettewinterson . live .
  13. News: Jeanette . Winterson . 2019-01-12 . The story of my Spitalfields home . The Times . 9 October 2009 . 0140-0460 . www.thetimes.co.uk . 13 January 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190113062807/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-story-of-my-spitalfields-home-g3jgtc7szf8 . live .
  14. News: Jeanette . Winterson . 2019-01-12 . Once upon a life: Jeanette Winterson . The Guardian . 12 June 2010 . 0261-3077 . www.theguardian.com . 5 July 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180705063130/https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/jun/13/once-upon-a-life-jeanette-winterson . live .
  15. News: Nadia . Khomami . 2019-01-12 . Jeanette Winterson to close London shop due to business rates surge . The Guardian . 23 January 2017 . 0261-3077 . www.theguardian.com . 13 January 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190113062725/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/23/jeanette-winterson-close-london-shop-business-rates-tax . live .
  16. Web site: 2019-01-12 . Sorry Jeanette Winterson, but you're wrong about business rates . 26 February 2017 . The Independent . 13 January 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190113235229/https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeanette-winterson-business-rates-verde-and-company-wrong-a7600226.html . live .
  17. Web site: 2019-01-12 . Jeanette Winterson on the threat of closure to her Spitalfields deli . 31 January 2017 . Evening Standard . 12 November 2020 . https://web.archive.org/web/20201112031636/https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/jeanette-winterson-on-the-business-rates-that-threaten-to-close-her-spitalfields-deli-verde-co-a3454171.html . live .
  18. http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/content/books/books_oxtales.html Ox-Tales
  19. http://www.bushtheatre.co.uk/sixtysix/ The Sixty Six Project
  20. https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/oct/16/sixty-six-books-review?INTCMP=SRCH Guardian
  21. News: The Daylight Gate by Jeanette Winterson – review . . 16 August 2013 . 9 October 2013 . 4 June 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140604235145/http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/aug/16/daylight-gate-jeanette-winterson-review . live .
  22. Web site: Winterson becomes Manchester Professor . The University of Manchester . 2012-05-14 . 2013-06-20 . 23 February 2014 . https://web.archive.org/web/20140223014638/http://www.manchester.ac.uk/aboutus/news/archive/list/item/?id=8273&year=2012&month=05 . live .
  23. Web site: How the world finally caught up with Jeanette Winterson . . 26 August 2019 . 2019-09-04 . 4 September 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190904144757/https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/how-jeanette-winterson-predicted-the-future-frankissstein.html . live .
  24. Web site: 2024-01-24 . Suzi Feay - Things That Go Bleep in the Night . 2024-01-24 . Literary Review . en.
  25. http://www.harcourtbooks.com/authorinterviews/bookinterview_Winterson.asp "Harcourt Publishers Interview with Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping"
  26. Web site: 2019-01-12 . Television in 1991 . awards.bafta.org . 26 August 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190826064037/http://awards.bafta.org/award/1991/television . live .
  27. http://lgbtweekly.com/2013/06/04/25th-annual-lambda-literary-award-winners-announced/ "25th annual Lambda Literary Award winners announced"
  28. Web site: 2019-01-12 . Saint Louis University Libraries . lib.slu.edu . 13 January 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190113003940/http://lib.slu.edu/about/associates/literary-award-winterson.php . live .
  29. Web site: Jeannette . Cooperman . 2019-01-12 . A Conversation With Jeanette Winterson . 16 September 2014 . . 13 November 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20211113233122/https://www.stlmag.com/culture/Literature/a-conversation-with-jeanette-winterson/ . live .
  30. Web site: BBC 100 Women 2016: Who is on the list?. 7 December 2016. 21 November 2016. BBC. 23 December 2016. https://web.archive.org/web/20161223235036/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-38012048. live.
  31. Web site: Jeanette Winterson . The Royal Society of Literature . 26 April 2018 . 26 April 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180426145355/https://rsliterature.org/fellow/jeanette-winterson/ . live .
  32. Don't Protect Me - Respect Me . . BBC One . 6 June 2018 . 42 . 8 June 2018 . 12 June 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180612161625/https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b61v25 . live .
  33. Web site: The Queen's Birthday Honours List 2018 . gov.uk . 8 June 2018 . 10 June 2018 . https://web.archive.org/web/20180610053229/https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-queens-birthday-honours-list-2018 . live .
  34. News: Justine . Jordan . 2019-09-04 . The Booker prize 2019 longlist's biggest surprise? There aren't many . The Guardian . 24 July 2019 . 0261-3077 . www.theguardian.com . 4 September 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190904132714/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/24/the-booker-prize-2019-longlist-biggest-surprise-there-arent-many . live .
  35. News: Dipesh . Gadher . Lesbian novelist Jeanette Winterson planned last visit to dying ex-lover . The Sunday Times . 26 October 2008 . 17 March 2011 . 3 March 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20160303173927/http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/culture/books/article127610.ece . dead .
  36. News: Maya Jaggi . Maya Jaggi . Saturday Review: Profile: Jeanette Winterson . The Guardian . 4 December 2008 . London . 29 May 2004 . 15 January 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130115033122/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/may/29/fiction.jeanettewinterson . live .
  37. News: Stuart Jeffries . Jeanette Winterson: 'I thought of suicide' . The Guardian . 15 August 2011 . London . 22 February 2010 . 21 July 2013 . https://web.archive.org/web/20130721151501/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/22/jeanette-winterson-thought-of-suicide . live .
  38. Web site: 2021-07-25 . Jeanette Winterson: 'The male push is to discard the planet: all the boys are going off into space' . 2021-09-03 . The Guardian . en . 31 August 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210831094255/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/jul/25/jeanette-winterson-the-male-push-is-to-discard-the-planet-all-the-boys-are-going-off-into-space . live .
  39. News: Christmas Days by Jeanette Winterson review – cruelty, comfort and joy . Alfred . Hickling . 25 November 2016 . The Guardian . 9 December 2016 . 9 December 2016 . https://web.archive.org/web/20161209021032/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/25/christmas-days-by-jeanette-winterson-review . live .
  40. Web site: Frankissstein by Jeanette Winterson review – an inventive reanimation . Johanna . Thomas-Corr . . 20 May 2019 . 14 June 2019 . 2 June 2019 . https://web.archive.org/web/20190602234828/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/may/20/frankisstein-jeanette-winterson-review-inventive-reanimation-of-a-classic . live .
  41. Web site: Laura Grace . Simpkins . 2021-09-19 . 12 Bytes review: Jeanette Winterson on AI and making life less binary . New Scientist . 22 September 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210922045754/https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25133450-300-12-bytes-review-jeanette-winterson-on-ai-and-making-life-less-binary/ . live .
  42. Web site: 2021-09-19 . Jeanette Winterson's vision of the future of AI is messianic – but unconvincing . 18 August 2021 . 21 September 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210921193618/https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/2021/08/jeanette-winterson-12-bytes-book-review . live .
  43. News: Claire . Lowdon . 2021-09-19 . 12 Bytes by Jeanette Winterson review — but was it written by a robot? . 0140-0460 . The Times . 3 August 2021 . https://web.archive.org/web/20210803223049/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/12-bytes-by-jeanette-winterson-review-s0h8x9mql . live .
  44. News: Winterson . Jeanette . Jeanette Winterson: I didn't believe in ghosts… until I started living with them . 22 September 2023 . The Daily Telegraph . 21 September 2023.
  45. Web site: Night Side of the River. . penguin.co.uk. 25 May 2024.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Jeanette Winterson".

Except where otherwise indicated, Everything.Explained.Today is © Copyright 2009-2024, A B Cryer, All Rights Reserved. Cookie policy.