Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
A. S. Byatt
Standard Name: Byatt, A. S.
Birth Name: Antonia Susan Drabble
Married Name: Antonia Susan Byatt
Married Name: Antonia Susan Duffy
ASB
, publishing in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, is predominantly a novelist of ideas. Her works (stories and criticism as well as novels) are intellectually demanding, typically spinning a complex web of literary and cultural allusions. She likes depicting extreme personal situations: critic Hilary Spurling has said she is adept at rendering disintegration.
qtd. in
Byatt, A. S. The Matisse Stories. Chatto and Windus, 1993.
In the early twenty-first century A. S. Byatt
discovered ES
when, working on her novel The Children's Book, she asked scholar Jack Zipes
for links between fairy stories and turn-of-the-century socialism and he mentioned Sharp.
Byatt, A. S. “Freedom won’t wait”. guardian.co.uk, 29 June 2009.
Literary responses
Alice Munro
The Selected Stories was hailed as an important literary event, and produced particularly interesting reviews from A. S. Byatt
and John Updike
. Byatt wrote that Munro was the equal of Chekhov
or de Maupassant
Literary responses
Evelyn Sharp
A. S. Byatt
in early 2008 found herself interested and excited by this book (then about to be reprinted). She described Sharp as perspicacious, witty and a very good writer.
“Back—due to popular demand”. The Guardian, 3 May 2008, pp. Review 4 - 6.
4
A year later she...
Literary responses
Alice Munro
After it won the O. Henry Prize (in the first year in which Canadians were eligible for this award) Munro described the genesis of the title story in an actual occurrence where a woman and...
Literary responses
Ruth Fainlight
A. S. Byatt
is quoted by the publishers of this book saying that RF
's poems give us truly new visions of usual and mysterious events.
qtd. in
The Poetry Archive. 2005, http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/home.do.
RF
feels that in Jocasta's Death she has achieved...
Literary responses
Alice Munro
Among a rich harvest of prizes and honours, AM
won the Giller Prize in both 1998 and 2004. In 2002 an Alice Munro Literary Garden, just beside the museum, was dedicated in Wingham, Ontario...
Literary responses
Kamila Shamsie
A Library Journal review called the novel a beautifully-written tale that is equal parts A. S. Byatt
-style mystery and mother-daughter saga and the compelling angle that post-9/11 Pakistani politics add to themes of responsibility...
Literary responses
Margaret Atwood
Novelist and critic Aritha Van Herk
found this volume less playful than its predecessors,a dry and dire collection . . . . Atwood as Cassandra, wailing her prophecy in the ear of a deaf...
Literary responses
Elaine Feinstein
A. S. Byatt
called Mother's Girla major achievement.
Feinstein, Elaine. It Goes with the Territory. Alma, 2013.
245
Reviewers tended to express faint disappointment with All You Need, perhaps because they were expecting something different.
Literary responses
Iris Murdoch
The first monograph on IM
was that of 1965 by A. S. Byatt
, who faulted her for the inconsistency of her fiction with her expressed philosophic views. This study provoked further academic discussion, and...
Literary responses
Pat Barker
With this novel PB
won the Guardian Fiction Prize. A. S. Byatt
wrote that the book provided a new vision of what the First World War did to human beings, male and female, soldiers and...
Literary responses
Barbara Pym
Initial comment included reviews or articles by A. S. Byatt
and Marghanita Laski
.
Allen, Orphia Jane. Barbara Pym: Writing a Life. Scarecrow Press, 1994.
Allen, Orphia Jane. Barbara Pym: Writing a Life. Scarecrow Press, 1994.
40
but effectively ironic, witty view of academia. Anne Wyatt-Brown
Literary responses
Penelope Fitzgerald
This volume prompted A. S. Byatt
to call its author Jane Austen
's nearest heir.
qtd. in
“Flamingo Press advertisement for ’The Means of Escape’ by Penelope Fitzgerald”. London Review of Books, 19 Oct. 2000, p. 21.
21
Literary responses
Barbara Pym
Pym is not one of those women writers whose stock has risen through feminist re-evaluation. Five years after the influential Times Literary Supplement article was published, Penelope Lively
wrote, I am always surprised that the...
Occupation
Elizabeth Jane Howard
EJH
's assignments in 1974 included, as well as the Rose Kennedy
interview, acting as one of the three judges of the Booker Prize. (Another judge this year was A. S. Byatt
.) Howard received...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Byatt, A. S. The Matisse Stories. Chatto and Windus, 1993.
Byatt, A. S., editor. The Oxford Book of English Short Stories. Oxford University Press, 1998.
Byatt, A. S. The Virgin in the Garden. Chatto and Windus, 1978.
