Jeanette Winterson, writing in the late twentieth and the twenty-first centuries, has been acclaimed by some critics and savaged by others for her provocative and outspoken novels, in which she uncompromisingly confronts cultural notions of gender identity, sexuality, and religion. She attempts to change the world through her writing in the manner of but in place of political activism. Her work is widely studied and celebrated by feminist and lesbian readers and critics, and is very popular with younger readers. Characteristically, she blends many genres: fable, fairytale, fantasy, history, philosophy, lesbian writing, science fiction, magic realism, and scientific studies. She is fond of stories in which the characters are on a journey together.
Milestones
27 August 1959 JW was born in
Manchester; she was given up for adoption.
21 March 1985 JW published her first novel, a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story of a young lesbian,
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.
After April 1985 JW's
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit won both the Publishing for People Award and the Whitbread Award for best first novel from the Booksellers Association of Great Britain and Ireland.
January 1990 The television adaptation of JW's first novel,
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was transmitted in three episodes on
BBC Television; the script was published the same year.
