12 Bytes

Thought provoking and necessary * Guardian *Briskly and breezily, it [12 Bytes] joins the dots in a neglected narrative of female scientists, visionaries and code-breakers – Claire Armitstead * Observer *12 punchy, fact-laden and witty essays… Her writing engulfs you in lucid, fairytale-like realities that take you on gender-bending and time-warped explorations of religion, love, sex, and sexual identity. – Charlotte Cripps * Independent *An unusual and entertaining read…[12 Bytes] is inflected with the same delightful, dry humour as the rest of her work… With its imaginative, insightful and wide-ranging essays, 12 Bytes will undoubtedly prompt readers to begin their own circlings around AI. – Laura Grace Simpkins * New Scientist *Aspects of this AI future are frightening…[and] for any non-scientist wanting to understand the challenges and possibilities of this brave new world, I can’t think of a more engaging place to start. – Stephanie Merritt * Observer *Quite brilliant. * i *This is, among other things, a very funny book… we are hardly short of dystopias, fictional and otherwise. Winterson’s approach is much richer and more fun: a kind of comparative mythology, where the hype and ideology of cutting-edge tech is read through the lens of far older stories. – Steven Poole * Spectator *[Winterson’s] essays…are agile, fascinating, richly varied and beautifully idiosyncratic. – Joanna Kavenna * Literary Review *Winterson… is always passionate and provocative. – Johanna Thomas-Corr * New Statesman *Refreshingly optimistic. – Steven Poole * Guardian *

Jeanette Winterson CBE was born in Manchester. She published her first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, at twenty-five. Over two decades later she revisited that material in her internationally bestselling memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?. Winterson has written thirteen novels for adults and two previous collections of short stories, as well as children’s books, non-fiction and screenplays. She is Professor of New Writing at the University of Manchester. She lives in the Cotswolds in a wood and in Spitalfields, London.