Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson is the author of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, which won the Whitbread First Novel Award in 1985. Her second novel, The Passion, won the John Llewllyn Rhys Prize in 1987, and was followed by Sexing the Cherry, which won the 1989 EM Forster Award. Her other works include The Powerbook, Written on the Body, Arts and Lies, Boating for Beginners, The World and Other Places, and a collection of eassays, Art Objects. Her latest book is The Battle of the Sun.

From her Q & A with Anna Metcalfe at the Financial Times:

What book changed your life?

The Bible shaped me; Virginia Woolf’s Orlando shaped my imagination; and Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities gave me the courage to write whatever I wanted.

* * *
Who would you like to be stuck in a lift with?

Meryl Streep.

* * *
What book do you wish you’d written?

Tom Jones. I love the bounce of the writing and I’m drawn to orphan stories.

Read the complete Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue