From Powells.com
Jeanette Winterson is brilliant, outspoken, and, in the words of Kirkus Reviews
"willing to risk being misunderstood for the sake of taking choice imaginative
lunges." Her work glitters with intellect and invention; she is a writer whose
love of the tactile is as apparent as her love of the written word. Sometimes
her sentences are palpable enough to stroke or taste, while others leave you smarting
from her razor sharp insight. Among her favorite short story writers she lists the works
of Anton Chekhov, Italo Calvino, Ian McEwan, Ruth Rendell, and Angela Carter, but adds "and
of course, the best short stories of all fairy stories." All of these influences are present in the collection The
World and Other Places. And yet the brilliant blend of the fantastic and the intellectual realized in these stories is all her own. Monica, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson's delectable first novel, announced the arrival of 'a fresh voice with a mind behind it,' as Muriel Spark has written. 'She is a master of her material, a writer in whom great talent deeply abides'--and her reputation and accomplishment have grown with each of her five subsequent novels.
Now, with her first collection--seventeen stories that span her entire career--Jeanette Winterson reveals all the facets of her extraordinary imagination. Whether transporting us to bizarre new geog-raphies--a world where sleep is illegal, an island of diamonds where the rich wear jewelry made of coal--or revealing so perfectly, so exactly, the joy and pain of owning a brand-new dog, she proves herself a master of the short form.
For her readers, a celebration--and for everyone else, a wonderful introduction to this highly original and consistently daring writer, who has become 'one of our most brilliant, visionary storytellers' (San Francisco Chronicle)
Synopsis
In this, her first collection of short stories, Jeanette Winterson reveals all the facets of her extraordinary imagination. Whether transporting us to bizarre new geographies - a world where sleep is illegal, an island of diamonds where the rich wear jewellery made of coal - or recalling the joy and pain of owning a brand-new dog, Winterson proves herself a master of the short form. In prose that is almost tactile, full of imagery and word play, she creates worlds that are at once familiar yet shockingly strange. For anyone who has been moved by Jeanette Winterson's novels, The World and Other Places is essential reading: a grand celebration of Winterson's gifts that spans her entire literary career.
About the Author
Jeanette Winterson is the author of eight books and the recipient of such honours as the Whitbread Award, the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize and the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She lives in the English countryside outside London.