1. Jeanette Winterson's first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, was a semi-autobiographical novel about a lesbian growing up in an English Pentecostal community.
13 Facts About Jeanette Winterson
1. 2.
Jeanette Winterson has received an Officer of the Order of the British Empire and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to literature, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
3.
Jeanette Winterson's novels have been translated to almost 20 languages.
4.
Jeanette Winterson grew up in Accrington, Lancashire, and was raised in the Elim Pentecostal Church.
5.
Jeanette Winterson was raised to become a Pentecostal Christian missionary, and she began evangelising and writing sermons at the age of six.
6.
One job Jeanette Winterson applied for was as an editorial assistant at Pandora Press, a feminist imprint newly founded in 1983 by Philippa Brewster, and in 1985 Brewster published Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which won the Whitbread Prize for a First Novel.
7.
Jeanette Winterson bought a derelict terraced house in Spitalfields, East London, which she refurbished into an occasional flat and a ground-floor shop, Verde's, to sell organic food.
8.
In 2009, Jeanette Winterson donated the short story "Dog Days" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, covering four collections of UK stories by 38 authors.
9.
Jeanette Winterson supported the relaunch of the Bush Theatre in London's Shepherd's Bush.
10.
Jeanette Winterson wrote and performed work for the Sixty Six Books project, based on a chapter of the King James Bible, along with other novelists and poets including Paul Muldoon, Carol Ann Duffy, Anne Michaels and Catherine Tate.
11.
In 2012, Jeanette Winterson succeeded Colm Toibin as Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.
12.
Suzi Feay, writing for Literary Review, said: "In these enjoyable tales Jeanette Winterson has ably served the genre, while sketching some unsettling future directions the ghost story might take".
13.
From 1990 to 2002, Jeanette Winterson had a relationship with BBC radio broadcaster and academic Peggy Reynolds.