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Belfast Telegraph
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Belfast Telegraph
A century of Clarissa: Why Mrs Dalloway will forever fascinate us
As Virginia Woolf's fourth novel turns 100, Katie Rosseinsky speaks to experts about how this dazzlingly experimental work still has readers and writers under its spell ©UK Independent In his 1998 novel The Hours, writer Michael Cunningham imagines Virginia Woolf sitting down to do battle with the draft of a book that will eventually become Mrs Dalloway. 'Can a single day in the life of an ordinary woman be made into enough for a novel?' his fictional version of the novelist ponders. The sweet, sad irony, of course, is that any reader of Mrs Dalloway knows that she needn't fret: the answer to Woolf's self-questioning is a resounding 'yes'. She is, in fact, working on a story so dazzling and expansive that it will prove irresistible to generations of readers to come, including writers like Cunningham. A century on from its debut, Woolf's fourth novel is 'as vital as ever', says Vintage Classics editor Charlotte Knight. To read it 100 years later is to be shocked by its immediacy and the sheer audacity of its experimentation; it's no wonder that contemporary authors are still in its thrall.
Tatler Asia
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Tatler Asia
9 magical realism literature for the jet-set book club
2. 'Beloved' by Toni Morrison Above 'Beloved' by Toni Morrison (Photo: Vintage Classics) In Morrison's haunted tale of a runaway enslaved woman, magical realism becomes a way to process intergenerational trauma. The ghost of a dead child—named Beloved—returns not to comfort but to disrupt. Morrison's language is hypnotic, but never indulgent. Here, the genre does not entertain so much as indict. It insists that certain truths can only be told through the unreal. 3. 'The Master and Margarita' by Mikhail Bulgakov Above 'The Master and Margarita' by Mikhail Bulgakov (Photo: Vintage Classics) A talking cat named Behemoth, Satan visiting 1930s Moscow and a manuscript that refuses to burn—this novel is outrageous in premise yet razor-sharp in satire. Bulgakov uses magical realism to lampoon Soviet censorship and artistic cowardice. For those tired of solemn symbolism, this offers irreverence with bite. It's best read with vodka, or perhaps while waiting for a delayed flight out of Sheremetyevo. 4. 'Pedro Páramo' by Juan Rulfo Above 'Pedro Páramo' by Juan Rulfo (Photo: Serpent's Tail Classics) Sparse, elliptical and eerie, Rulfo's novel helped shape Latin American magical realism long before it became fashionable. When Juan Preciado arrives in the ghost town of Comala to find his father, he discovers a village populated by murmurs and memories. This isn't a page-turner—it's a slow descent. Still, its compact length makes it a perfect read between check-ins and cocktails. 5. 'The House of the Spirits' by Isabel Allende Above 'The House of the Spirits' by Isabel Allende (Photo: Vintage Classics) Allende's debut blends family saga with political upheaval in postcolonial Chile. Critics have debated whether it's derivative of Márquez, but the book holds its own in its exploration of matriarchal memory, spiritual visions and domestic power. Magical realism here is a tool of female resistance, quietly upending a patriarchal world through the domestic and the divine. 6. 'The Famished Road' by Ben Okri Above 'The Famished Road' by Ben Okri (Photo: Vintage Classics) Okri's Booker Prize-winning novel follows Azaro, a spirit child caught between life and the afterlife in postcolonial Nigeria. The prose can veer toward the ornamental, but it captures a world where ancestors interrupt daily life and reality pulses with unseen energies. Magical realism, in Okri's hands, becomes both political and philosophical. It's not a casual read, nor should it be. 7. 'The Palm-Wine Drinkard' by Amos Tutuola Above 'The Palm-Wine Drinkard' by Amos Tutuola (Photo: Faber & Faber) A chaotic, exhilarating plunge into Yoruba folklore, Tutuola's novel is unlike anything in the Western canon. It was derided when first published in 1952, but later celebrated for its raw invention. The narrator's quest through spirit lands and shapeshifting creatures may lack polish, but it pulses with authenticity. Magical realism here is deeply rooted, drawing power from oral traditions rather than literary fashion. 8. 'Kafka on the Shore' by Haruki Murakami Above 'Kafka on the Shore' by Haruki Murakami (Photo: Vintage) A boy runs away from home. A man talks to cats. A storm of leeches falls from the sky. Murakami's novel is cryptic but deliberate, filled with riddles rather than revelations. The surreal elements aren't decorative—they form the architecture of the characters' emotional landscapes. While not all critics agree on calling it magical realism, the novel's refusal to distinguish dream from reality puts it firmly in the genre's most modern lineage. Best read in transit, when your sense of time and space is already in flux. 9. 'Like Water for Chocolate' by Laura Esquivel Above 'Like Water for Chocolate' by Laura Esquivel (Photo: Black Swan) A cookbook of longing disguised as a novel, Esquivel's story of forbidden love and inherited recipes popularised magical realism for a broader audience. Tita's emotions infuse her cooking, causing dinner guests to weep or lust depending on the dish. Though its popularity has led some to dismiss it as sentimental, the novel's sensual intelligence remains sharp. It turns domestic ritual into rebellion, a theme as relevant in contemporary kitchens as it is in literature. For the jet-set reader, magical realism offers more than a surreal detour. It's a way of seeing—one that acknowledges beauty without denying brutality, and wonder without abandoning doubt. These books are not whimsical escapes. They are invitations to reconsider what we take for granted about reality, especially when viewed from a window seat at 35,000 feet. NOW READ 7 upgraded travel essentials for the savvy flyer's wellness kit From sleep tourism to 'quietcations: 4 wellness travel trends for the weary 7 inspiring wellness books for a grounded, mindful life
Sydney Morning Herald
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Forty years on, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit still tells a radical truth
When Jeanette Winterson was 23, she had an interview at the new feminist publisher, Pandora Press, hoping to be their publicist. She didn't get the job. But the way she talked about her extremely strange childhood impressed the publisher, Philippa Brewster, who told Winterson, 'If you can write it the way you tell it, I'll buy it.' Winterson had always written: sermons, stories to herself to try to make sense of the world. She hadn't tried to write a novel. 'I thought, I'll sit down and see what happens,' she says. 'I had no idea about gender, sexism, all of that.' But although she came from a family where non-religious books were banned, her mother had read to her daily from the King James Bible, which gave her a love of language, story and structure. What emerged was the fictionalised story of growing up in working-class Accrington, Lancashire, as the adopted child of an eccentric and fiercely Pentecostal evangelist mother. 'I thought I could write my way out,' she says. 'Language is something I can trust, so I can see the inside of my head. You need to be able to write yourself as a fiction, to understand you're a story in progress. I didn't need to be trapped in a narrative that belonged to somebody else.' The story was funny, awfully bizarre and bizarrely awful – what other child would have her deafness ignored because it was thought she was in a state of rapture? – but to the child Jeanette, it was just life, getting on with things while waiting for Jesus to come and roll up heaven like a scroll. Until at 16 she fell in love with a girl, and everything came apart. When you're a young person and you don't have anything, you believe it can only get better. After a few months of writing, she cycled back to Pandora with the only copy of her manuscript in her saddlebag (she couldn't afford to photocopy it). This time Pandora's other boss, Australian feminist Dale Spender, was in the office with Brewster. 'Dale snatched the manuscript and read the beginning. 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. She turned to Philippa and said, 'This is good.' I thought, Oh, there's a way in for me.' That manuscript became the hugely successful novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, published in 1985. The current publishers, Vintage Classics, are sending their star author around the world to celebrate the book's 40th anniversary. I read it in one breathless swoop, and like many fans, I can't believe it's been 40 years since. Nor can Winterson. She is talking to me from her home in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire. Behind her are windows with a view of the woods and the sun is casting a halo over her curly head. An eager and fervent speaker, she still has her Northern accent. 'I was brought up in a gospel tent, I'm never nervous public speaking,' she says. 'They book me in for a lot of big events. The more people the better. I'm trying to present to people what I believe, that's part of my job.' She's keen to find the positives in even the worst things that have happened to her, and she's hopeful for the future where other writers are gloomy, particularly over her pet subject, the challenges we face with AI. In the early days, Oranges was sometimes slotted into the cookery bookshelves with the marmalade recipes. Later, it made its way onto the LGBTQ shelves. Now it's in with the literary classics and has found new generations of readers around the world. Winterson has since written 10 novels, as well as children's books, nonfiction and screenplays, including one for the prizewinning BBC TV adaptation of Oranges. She has won many awards, including a CBE and an OBE for services to literature, and her work is published in 28 countries. Young people respond to Orange' s queer coming of age story in China and Hungary. 'It's a classic, I'm not the kind of person they would want to ban. At this point in my life I have some useful status, I can get to places other people can't. I'm hoping because it's so well known and well-loved, it will be a kind of raft you can cling onto.' There wasn't much for young Jeanette to cling to when she fell in love. Mrs Winterson and her fellow church members held an exorcism, chanting continuous prayers, speaking in tongues and laying their hands on Jeanette. It had a hypnotic effect, she says. 'They do believe people are inhabited by devils and they can be expelled. But obviously to a young girl it was frightening.' Inevitably, teenage Jeanette had to leave home. She moved around for a couple of years, studying and working, living in a tent and sleeping on other people's floors. 'I thought, I can't pretend to be the person they want me to be. By then, things had broken down and were so full of distress and sadness that to stay would have been far worse.' One of her best times was living in a Mini, with its boot full of her favourite books. 'It wasn't as dramatic as it would be now. I felt free, I wasn't afraid. When you're a young person and you don't have anything, you believe it can only get better.' She eventually made her way to Oxford University to study English literature. 'It was wonderful, I was free to study. It was also a huge cultural shock because people like me were not there in any numbers. I didn't fit. But it changed my life completely; I was able to move into a different world.' Loading Winterson returned to her early years in 2012, this time in a memoir with the title from one of her mother's inspired sayings, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? She had come through a painful period after an attempted suicide and felt she needed to go back. With more distance between her and her childhood, she felt free to mention darker things. 'There's a lot more pain and hurt in that book. I could go back to some of the material and not have to disguise it.' One of Mrs Winterson's sayings was 'The devil had led me to the wrong crib'. Still, Winterson can see the bright side: 'It's absolutely appalling, but full of metaphor and colour. Suddenly we're not in a crummy two-up and two-down. We're in a fairy tale, an opera, a grand landscape where the devil will bother to come and deceive Mrs Winterson.' In the memoir, she details her quest to find her birth mother. She succeeded, but it turned out to be a mixed blessing. 'I was glad I found her. I wanted other adopted people to understand if they take that route, they shouldn't imagine there is going to be a pink focus, happy Hollywood ending. We're all going to do our best, but it's fine for it to go wrong.' Loading Winterson did have a reunion with her adoptive father before he died. 'I was angry with him for a long time for not standing up for me, and for beating me. I was glad I could meet him on his own terms, there was no point in going in for explanation. Dad was like a very little boy. I thought he was never really allowed to grow up.' Mrs Winterson died when her daughter was 30, so there was never time for a reunion. In any case, she thinks it would have been impossible. 'She was an absolutist. For her to recognise what happened to me would have reversed everything she believed. She was a deeply unhappy woman, and unhappiness closes you down.' When Winterson wrote Oranges, 'in my innocence I didn't realise that women were only ever supposed to write about their own experience in a small way. But I don't care. If people are still reading it, if it can still be in print 40 years later, all over the world, I have got something right.'
The Age
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Forty years on, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit still tells a radical truth
When Jeanette Winterson was 23, she had an interview at the new feminist publisher, Pandora Press, hoping to be their publicist. She didn't get the job. But the way she talked about her extremely strange childhood impressed the publisher, Philippa Brewster, who told Winterson, 'If you can write it the way you tell it, I'll buy it.' Winterson had always written: sermons, stories to herself to try to make sense of the world. She hadn't tried to write a novel. 'I thought, I'll sit down and see what happens,' she says. 'I had no idea about gender, sexism, all of that.' But although she came from a family where non-religious books were banned, her mother had read to her daily from the King James Bible, which gave her a love of language, story and structure. What emerged was the fictionalised story of growing up in working-class Accrington, Lancashire, as the adopted child of an eccentric and fiercely Pentecostal evangelist mother. 'I thought I could write my way out,' she says. 'Language is something I can trust, so I can see the inside of my head. You need to be able to write yourself as a fiction, to understand you're a story in progress. I didn't need to be trapped in a narrative that belonged to somebody else.' The story was funny, awfully bizarre and bizarrely awful – what other child would have her deafness ignored because it was thought she was in a state of rapture? – but to the child Jeanette, it was just life, getting on with things while waiting for Jesus to come and roll up heaven like a scroll. Until at 16 she fell in love with a girl, and everything came apart. When you're a young person and you don't have anything, you believe it can only get better. After a few months of writing, she cycled back to Pandora with the only copy of her manuscript in her saddlebag (she couldn't afford to photocopy it). This time Pandora's other boss, Australian feminist Dale Spender, was in the office with Brewster. 'Dale snatched the manuscript and read the beginning. 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. She turned to Philippa and said, 'This is good.' I thought, Oh, there's a way in for me.' That manuscript became the hugely successful novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, published in 1985. The current publishers, Vintage Classics, are sending their star author around the world to celebrate the book's 40th anniversary. I read it in one breathless swoop, and like many fans, I can't believe it's been 40 years since. Nor can Winterson. She is talking to me from her home in the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire. Behind her are windows with a view of the woods and the sun is casting a halo over her curly head. An eager and fervent speaker, she still has her Northern accent. 'I was brought up in a gospel tent, I'm never nervous public speaking,' she says. 'They book me in for a lot of big events. The more people the better. I'm trying to present to people what I believe, that's part of my job.' She's keen to find the positives in even the worst things that have happened to her, and she's hopeful for the future where other writers are gloomy, particularly over her pet subject, the challenges we face with AI. In the early days, Oranges was sometimes slotted into the cookery bookshelves with the marmalade recipes. Later, it made its way onto the LGBTQ shelves. Now it's in with the literary classics and has found new generations of readers around the world. Winterson has since written 10 novels, as well as children's books, nonfiction and screenplays, including one for the prizewinning BBC TV adaptation of Oranges. She has won many awards, including a CBE and an OBE for services to literature, and her work is published in 28 countries. Young people respond to Orange' s queer coming of age story in China and Hungary. 'It's a classic, I'm not the kind of person they would want to ban. At this point in my life I have some useful status, I can get to places other people can't. I'm hoping because it's so well known and well-loved, it will be a kind of raft you can cling onto.' There wasn't much for young Jeanette to cling to when she fell in love. Mrs Winterson and her fellow church members held an exorcism, chanting continuous prayers, speaking in tongues and laying their hands on Jeanette. It had a hypnotic effect, she says. 'They do believe people are inhabited by devils and they can be expelled. But obviously to a young girl it was frightening.' Inevitably, teenage Jeanette had to leave home. She moved around for a couple of years, studying and working, living in a tent and sleeping on other people's floors. 'I thought, I can't pretend to be the person they want me to be. By then, things had broken down and were so full of distress and sadness that to stay would have been far worse.' One of her best times was living in a Mini, with its boot full of her favourite books. 'It wasn't as dramatic as it would be now. I felt free, I wasn't afraid. When you're a young person and you don't have anything, you believe it can only get better.' She eventually made her way to Oxford University to study English literature. 'It was wonderful, I was free to study. It was also a huge cultural shock because people like me were not there in any numbers. I didn't fit. But it changed my life completely; I was able to move into a different world.' Loading Winterson returned to her early years in 2012, this time in a memoir with the title from one of her mother's inspired sayings, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? She had come through a painful period after an attempted suicide and felt she needed to go back. With more distance between her and her childhood, she felt free to mention darker things. 'There's a lot more pain and hurt in that book. I could go back to some of the material and not have to disguise it.' One of Mrs Winterson's sayings was 'The devil had led me to the wrong crib'. Still, Winterson can see the bright side: 'It's absolutely appalling, but full of metaphor and colour. Suddenly we're not in a crummy two-up and two-down. We're in a fairy tale, an opera, a grand landscape where the devil will bother to come and deceive Mrs Winterson.' In the memoir, she details her quest to find her birth mother. She succeeded, but it turned out to be a mixed blessing. 'I was glad I found her. I wanted other adopted people to understand if they take that route, they shouldn't imagine there is going to be a pink focus, happy Hollywood ending. We're all going to do our best, but it's fine for it to go wrong.' Loading Winterson did have a reunion with her adoptive father before he died. 'I was angry with him for a long time for not standing up for me, and for beating me. I was glad I could meet him on his own terms, there was no point in going in for explanation. Dad was like a very little boy. I thought he was never really allowed to grow up.' Mrs Winterson died when her daughter was 30, so there was never time for a reunion. In any case, she thinks it would have been impossible. 'She was an absolutist. For her to recognise what happened to me would have reversed everything she believed. She was a deeply unhappy woman, and unhappiness closes you down.' When Winterson wrote Oranges, 'in my innocence I didn't realise that women were only ever supposed to write about their own experience in a small way. But I don't care. If people are still reading it, if it can still be in print 40 years later, all over the world, I have got something right.'
