Editions

  • Home
  • Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

  • Imprint: Vintage

  • ISBN: 9780099598183

  • Length: 240  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 15mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 170g

  • RRP: £8.99

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit

'Like most people I lived for a long time with my mother and father. My father liked to watch the wrestling, my mother liked to wrestle; it didn't matter what'

This is the story of Jeanette, adopted and brought up by her mother as one of God's elect. Zealous and passionate, she seems destined for life as a missionary, but then she falls for one of her converts.

At sixteen, Jeanette decides to leave the church, her home and her family, for the young woman she loves. Innovative, punchy and tender, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is a few days ride into the bizarre outposts of religious excess and human obsession.

'Witty… extraordinary and exhilarating' The Times

'She is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent abides' Vanity Fair

'Many consider her to be the best living writer in this language... In her hands, words are fluid, radiant, humming' Evening Standard

'A novel that deserves revisiting' Observer

'A wonderful rites-of-passage novel' Mariella Frostrup

  • Imprint: Vintage

  • ISBN: 9780099598183

  • Length: 240  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 15mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 170g

  • RRP: £8.99

Reviews

  • "She is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent abides"

    Vanity Fair

  • "Many consider her to be the best living writer in this language... In her hands, words are fluid, radiant, humming"

    Evening Standard

  • "A novel that deserves revisiting...Winterson maintains a balance of tone, a trueness of voice... It remains one of the finest things Winterson has written"

    Observer

  • "Still extraordinary, still brilliant"

    Metro

  • "Even at a time when so many good and interesting novels are coming out, hers stand out as performances of real originality and extraordinary promise"

    John Bayley

  • "Wonderful rites-of-passage novel... where the author's blossoming Sapphic nature leads her to eschew her mothers proffered favourite"

    Mariella Frostrup

  • "It is very funny, with an Alan Bennett sort of humour, beautifully written, quirky and likely to cause much tuttutting in conservative quarters"

    Daily Mail

  • "This lesbian coming of age story set in northern England doesn't seem to have aged a bit"

    The Independent

  • "An instant classic"

    Rosemary Goring, Herald

More from this Author

View all View all
View all View all

About the Author

Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson OBE was born in Manchester. Adopted by Pentecostal parents she was raised to be a missionary. This did and didn’t work out. Discovering early the power of books she left home at 16 to live in a Mini and get on with her education. After graduating from Oxford University she worked for a while in the theatre and published her first novel at 25. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is based on her own upbringing but using herself as a fictional character. She scripted the novel into a BAFTA-winning BBC drama. 27 years later she re-visited that material in the bestselling memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? She has written 10 novels for adults, as well as children’s books, non-fiction and screenplays. She writes regularly for the Guardian. She lives in the Cotswolds in a wood and in Spitalfields, London. She believes that art is for everyone and it is her mission to prove it.

Jeanette Winterson

Related articles

/content/dam/prh/articles/adults/2019/january/vintage-in-article-Image-VINTAGEWOMEN.jpg

Features

Read women in 2019: VINTAGE classic and new female authors

Join us at VINTAGE in a year of challenging ourselves to listen, hear and respond to some of the greatest female writers history has to offer. From Margaret Atwood to Mary Wollstonecraft, revisit your favourites, discover new voices and fill your bookshelf and your year with women’s voices. They matter.
/content/dam/prh/articles/archive/Oranges-snippet-image winterson.jpg

Extracts

Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson OBE was born in Manchester. Adopted by Pentecostal parents she was raised to be a missionary. This did and didn’t work out. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit is based on her own upbringing but using herself as a fictional character. Read an extract of the novel below
/content/dam/prh/articles/archive/vintage-podcast-logo.jpg

Podcasts

Hogarth Shakespeare with Jeanette Winterson and Howard Jacobson

Our Use of Cookies

We use cookies on this site to enable certain parts of the site to function and to collect information about your use of the site so that we can improve our visitors’ experience.

For more on our cookies and changing your settings click here

Strictly Necessary

Strictly Necessary cookies enable core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility. You may disable these by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how the website functions. See More.

Analytics

Analytics cookies help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. These cookies may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our pages. See More.

Preferences & Features

Preference and Feature cookies allow our website to remember choices you make, such as your language preferences and any customisations you make to pages on our website during your visit. See More.

Targeting / Advertising

Targeting cookies are used to make advertising messages more relevant to you and your interests. They perform functions like preventing the same content from reappearing, ensuring ads are displayed and, in some cases, selecting content based on your interests. See More.