Sonya Andermahr - Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson

NEW BRITISH FICTION

Series editors:

Philip Tew

Rod Mengham

Published

Sonya Andermahr: Jeanette Winterson

Bradley Buchanan: Hanif Kureishi

Frederick M. Holmes: Julian Barnes

Kaye Mitchell: A.L. Kennedy

Robert Morace: Irvine Welsh

Stephen Morton: Salman Rushdie

Forthcoming

Rod Mengham: Jonathan Coe

Mark Rawlinson: Pat Barker

Philip Tew: Zadie Smith

Lynn Wells: Ian McEwan

Wendy Wheeler: A.S. Byatt

New British Fiction Series

Series Standing Order

ISBN 978-1-4039-4274-6 hardback

ISBN 978-1-4039-4275-3 paperback

(outside North America only)

You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in the case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above.

Customer Services Department, Palgrave Ltd

Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England

Jeanette Winterson

Sonya Andermahr

Sonya Andermahr 2009

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission.

No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS.

Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The author has asserted her right to be identified

as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright,

Designs and Patents Act 1988.

First published 2009 by

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS.

Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martins Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world.

Palgrave and Macmillan are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.

ISBN 978-0-230-50760-9 hardback

ISBN 978-0-230-50761-6 ISBN 978-1-137-11352-8 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-11352-8

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Andermahr, Sonya.

Jeanette Winterson / Sonya Andermahr.

p. cm. (New British fiction)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 9780230507609 (hbk.)

ISBN 9780230507616 (pbk.)

1. Winterson, Jeanette, 1959Criticism and interpretation. I. Title.

PR6073.I558Z58 2009

GENERAL EDITORS PREFACE

This series highlights with its very title two crucial elements in the nature of contemporary British fiction, especially as a field for academic research and study. The first term indicates the originality and freshness of such writing expressed in a huge formal diversity. The second evokes the cultural identity of the authors included, who nevertheless represent through their diversity a challenge to any hegemonic or narrow view of Britishness. As regards the fiction, many of the writers featured in this series continue to draw from and adapt long traditions of cultural and aesthetic practice. Such aesthetic continuities contrast starkly with the conditions of knowledge at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, a period that has been characterized by an apprehension of radical presentness, a sense of unprecedented forms of experience and an obsession with new modes of self-awareness. This stage of the survival of the novel may perhaps be best remembered as a millennial and post-millennial moment, a time of fluctuating reading practices and of historical events whose impact is largely still unresolved. The new fiction of these times reflects a rapidly changing cultural and ideological reality, as well as a renewal of the commitment of both writers and readers to both the relevance and utility of narrative forms of knowledge.

Each volume in this series will serve as an introductory guide to an individual author chosen from a list of those whose work has proved to be of general interest to reviewers, academics, students and the general reading public. Each volume will offer information concerning the life, work and literary and cultural contexts appropriate to the chosen subject of each book; individual volumes will share the same overall structure with a largely common organization of materials. The result is intended to be suitable for both academic and general readers: putting accessibility at a premium, without compromising an ambitious series of readings of todays most vitally interesting British novelists, interpreting their work, assessing their influences, and exploring their relationship to the times in which they live.

Philip Tew and Rod Mengham

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I owe thanks to a number of people who have helped me in the writing of this book: Jeanette Winterson for agreeing to a short interview; Phil Tew for his help and advice at the start and end of the project; Kate Haines, Kitty Van Boxel and Sonya Barker at Palgrave Macmillan for their patient support. Thanks also to the anonymous reader for their positive feedback. Finally, I would like to thank my mum, Jill Scott-Lee, for her encouragement.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

AL Art & Lies: A Piece for Three Voices and a Bawd

AO Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery

GS Gut Symmetries

KC The King of Capri

L Lighthousekeeping

O Oranges

P Passion

PB The PowerBook

S Sexing the Cherry

SG The Stone Gods

T Tanglewreck

W Weight

WB Written on the Body

WP The World and Other Places

PART I

Introduction

TIMELINE