Oranges are Not the Only Fruit

"To read Jeanette Winterson is to love her."--O, the Oprah Magazine

A beloved contemporary feminist classic and pioneering work of autofiction--a funny, poignant exploration of a young girl's quirky passage into adulthood

Jeanette Winterson's extraordinary career began at the age of twenty-five with the publication of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. An international bestseller and winner of the prestigious Whitbread Award for Best First Fiction, it is considered a classic of contemporary literature and taught widely around the world, in courses ranging from core undergraduate classes to women's studies and queer studies.

Jeanette is a bright and rebellious orphan who is adopted into an evangelical household in the dour, industrial north of England. Her youth is spent embroidering grim religious mottoes and shaking her little tambourine for Jesus. But as this budding missionary comes of age and comes to terms with her unorthodox sexuality, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household collapses. Jeanette's insistence on listening to truths of her own heart and mind--and on reporting them with wit and passion--makes for an unforgettable chronicle of an extraordinary passage into adulthood.

“"A striking, quirky, delicate, and intricate work . . . Winterson has mastered both comedy and tragedy in this rich little novel. . . . Winterson's great gift is evident." ”

Praise for Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit

--The Washington Post Book World

"A daring, unconventional comic novel . . . by employing quirky anecdotes, which are told with romping humor, and by splicing various parables into the narrative, Winterson allows herself the dangerous luxury of writing a novel that refuses to rely on rousing plot devices. . . . A fascinating debut . . . A penetrating novel." --Chicago Tribune

"If Flannery O'Connor and Rita Mae Brown had collaborated on the coming-out story of a young British girl in the 1960s, maybe they would have approached the quirky and subtle hilarity of Jeanette Winterson's autobiographical first novel. . . . Winterson's voice, with its idiosyncratic wit and sensitivity, is one you've never heard before." --Ms.

"The overwhelming impression of her work is one of remarkable self-confidence, and she evidently thrives on risk.... As good as Poe: it dares you to laugh and stares you down." --The New York Review of Books

"An explosively imaginative writer." --The London Free Press

"She is a master of her material, a writer [of] great talent." --Muriel Spark

"Many consider her to be the best living writer in this language." --Evening Standard

"The most interesting writer I have read in twenty years." --Gore Vidal

Born in Manchester, England, JEANETTE WINTERSON is the author of more than twenty books, including the national bestseller Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, and The Passion. She has won many prizes including the Whitbread Award for Best First Novel, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the E. M. Forster Award, and the Stonewall Award.

When it first appeared, Jeanette Winterson's extraordinary debut novel received unanimous international praise, including the prestigious Whitbread Prize for best first fiction. Winterson has gone on to fulfill that promise, winning the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and producing some of the most dazzling and admired novels of the past decade. Now required reading in contemporary literature, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a funny, poignant exploration of a young girl's quirky adolescence. Jeanette is a bright and rebellious orphan who is adopted into an evangelical household in the dour, industrial North of England and finds herself embroidering grim religious mottoes and shaking her little tambourine for Jesus. But as this budding missionary comes of age, and comes to terms with her unorthodox sexuality, the peculiar balance of her God-fearing household dissolves. Jeanette's insistence on listening to the truths of her own heart and mind-and on reporting them with wit and passion-makes for an unforgettable chronicle of an eccentric, moving passage into adulthood.

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