Jeanette Winterson

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Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson, Warsaw, Poland, 16 February 2005
Born 27 August 1959 (1959-08-27) (age 50)
Manchester, England
Occupation Novelist, Journalist, Delicatessen owner
Nationality British
Writing period 1985-
Genres Fiction, Children's fiction, Journalism, Science fiction
Notable work(s) Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit
Official website

Jeanette Winterson OBE (born 27 August 1959) is a British novelist.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early years

Winterson was born in Manchester and raised in Accrington, Lancashire, by adopted parents Constance and John William Winterson. On track to becoming a Pentecostal Christian missionary, she began evangelising and writing sermons at age six, but by sixteen Winterson declared she was lesbian and left home.[1] She soon after attended Accrington and Rossendale College and supported herself at a variety of odd jobs while reading for a degree in English at St Catherine's College, Oxford.

[edit] Career

After moving to London, her first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was published when she was twenty-four years old. It won the 1985 Whitbread Prize for a First Novel, and was adapted for television by Winterson in 1990, which in turn won the BAFTA Award for Best Drama. She won the 1987 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for The Passion, a novel set in Napoleonic Europe.

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 a flat as a pied-a-terre and a ground-floor shop, Verde's, to sell organic food.[2]

Winterson was made an officer of Order of the British Empire (OBE) at the 2006 New Year Honours.

[edit] Personal life

In 2002, Winterson ended her twelve-year relationship with BBC radio broadcaster and academic, Peggy Reynolds.[3] Her novel Written on the Body was inspired by an affair with her literary agent, Pat Kavanagh.[4]

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] References

  1. ^ Patricia Juliana Smith (24 July 2006). "Winterson, Jeanette (b. 1959)". glbtq Encyclopedia. http://www.glbtq.com/literature/winterson_j.html. Retrieved 2008-12-04. 
  2. ^ Kate Kellaway (25 June 2006). "If I Was a Dog, I'd Be a Terrier". The Observer. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/jun/25/jeanettewinterson. Retrieved 2008-12-06. 
  3. ^ Maya Jaggi (2004). "Saturday Review: Profile: Jeanette Winterson". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2004/may/29/fiction.jeanettewinterson. Retrieved 2008-12-04. 
  4. ^ Grimes, William (2008-10-23). "Pat Kavanagh, Literary Agent, Dies at 68". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/books/23kavanagh.html. Retrieved 2008-12-06. 

[edit] External links