Editions

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

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About the Author

Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson CBE 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 is Professor of New Writing at the University of Manchester. 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

Read more

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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
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Podcasts

Hogarth Shakespeare with Jeanette Winterson and Howard Jacobson

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