Jeanette Winterson
Jeanette Winterson (born 1959) is a writer.
Bibliography
- Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985; realistic; biographical novel)
- Boating for Beginners (1985)
- Fit For The Future: The Guide for Women Who Want to Live Well (1986)
- The Passion (1987 novel)
- Sexing the Cherry (1989 novel)
- Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit: the script (1990)
- Written on the Body (1992)
- Art and Lies: A Piece for Three Voices and a Bawd (1994)
- Great Moments in Aviation: the script (1995)
- Art Objects (1995)
- Gut Symmetries (1997)
- The World and Other Places (1998)
- The Powerbook (2000)
- The King of Capri (2003)
- Lighthousekeeping (2004)
- Weight (2005)
- Tanglewreck (2006)
- The Stone Gods (2007)
Winterson Hates SF
Jeanette Winterson has made it to the "As Others See Us" column of Ansible two months in a row[1][2] for proclaiming her hatred of SF -- after writing a SF novel.
Here is an excerpt from an interview with Winterson in New Scientist 25th Augst 2007[3]:
- What do you think about novelists and science?
- I hate science fiction. But good writers about science, such as Jim Crace or Margaret Atwood, are great. They take on science because it’s crucial to our world, and they use language to give energy to ideas. But others just borrow from science and it ends up like the emperor’s new clothes, with no understanding of the material. But you shouldn’t fake it because science is too important, it’s the basis for our lives. I expect a lot more science in fiction because science is so rich. I certainly learn from my books as I go along.
- What’s your next book about?
- It’s called Robot Love and it’s for kids. A girl builds a multi-gendered robot, which then kills her parents because it sees them mistreat her, so they both go on the run. I’m fascinated by artificial intelligence and where it will lead.
- These robots couldn’t build anything as bad as us – so why would they keep us?
...ooookay.
Here is what Ursula Le Guin had to say[4] about that!
- It's odd to find characters in a science-fiction novel repeatedly announcing that they hate science fiction. I can only suppose that Jeanette Winterson is trying to keep her credits as a "literary" writer even as she openly commits genre. Surely she's noticed that everybody is writing science fiction now? Formerly deep-dyed realists are producing novels so full of the tropes and fixtures and plotlines of science fiction that only the snarling tricephalic dogs who guard the Canon of Literature can tell the difference. I certainly can't. Why bother? I am bothered, though, by the curious ingratitude of authors who exploit a common fund of imagery while pretending to have nothing to do with the fellow-authors who created it and left it open to all who want to use it. A little return generosity would hardly come amiss.
References
- This article is a SEED, meaning it is tiny and needs lots of work. Help it grow.