Jeanette Winterson OBE was born in Manchester. Adopted by Pentecostal parents she was raised to be a missionary. This did and didn't work out. Discovering early the power of books she left home at 16 to live in a Mini and get on with her education. After graduating from Oxford University she worked for a while in the theatre and published her first novel at 25. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is based on her own upbringing but using herself as a fictional character. She scripted the novel into a BAFTA-winning BBC drama. 27 years later she re-visited that material in the bestselling memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? She has written 10 novels for adults, as well as children's books, non-fiction and screenplays. She writes regularly for the Guardian. She lives in the Cotswolds in a wood and in Spitalfields, London. She believes that art is for everyone and it is her mission to prove it.
She is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent abides * Vanity Fair * Many consider her to be the best living writer in this language... In her hands, words are fluid, radiant, humming * Evening Standard * A novel that deserves revisiting...Winterson maintains a balance of tone, a trueness of voice... It remains one of the finest things Winterson has written * Observer * Still extraordinary, still brilliant * Metro * Even at a time when so many good and interesting novels are coming out, hers stand out as performances of real originality and extraordinary promise -- John Bayley Wonderful rites-of-passage novel... where the author's blossoming Sapphic nature leads her to eschew her mothers proffered favourite -- Mariella Frostrup It is very funny, with an Alan Bennett sort of humour, beautifully written, quirky and likely to cause much tuttutting in conservative quarters * Daily Mail * This lesbian coming of age story set in northern England doesn't seem to have aged a bit * The Independent * An instant classic -- Rosemary Goring * Herald *