A. S. Byatt

52

A. S. Byatt : biography

24 August 1936 –

The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice Little Black Book of Stories The Matisse Stories Prospect The Guardian The Times Times Literary Supplement

On the role of writing in her life, she says: "I think of writing simply in terms of pleasure. It’s the most important thing in my life, making things. Much as I love my husband and my children, I love them only because I am the person who makes these things. I, who I am, is the person that has the project of making a thing. Well, that’s putting it pompously – but constructing. I do see it in sort of three-dimensional structures. And because that person does that all the time, that person is able to love all these people."

Works

  • 1964 The Shadow of the Sun, Chatto & Windus
  • 1965 Degrees of Freedom: The Early Novels of Iris Murdoch, Chatto & Windus
  • 1967 The Game, Chatto & Windus
  • 1970 Wordsworth and Coleridge in Their Time, Nelson
  • 1976 Iris Murdoch: A Critical Study, Longman
  • 1978 The Virgin in the Garden, Chatto & Windus
  • 1985 Still Life, Chatto & Windus
  • 1987 Sugar and Other Stories, Chatto & Windus
  • 1989 Unruly Times: Wordsworth and Coleridge, Poetry and Life, Hogarth Press
  • 1990 George Eliot: Selected Essays, Poems and Other Writings (editor with Nicholas Warren), Penguin
  • 1990 Possession: A Romance, Chatto & Windus
  • 1991 Passions of the Mind: Selected Writings, Chatto & Windus
  • 1992 Angels & Insects, Chatto & Windus
  • 1993 The Matisse Stories, Chatto & Windus
  • 1994 The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, Chatto & Windus
  • 1995 Imagining Characters: Six Conversations about Women Writers (with Ignes Sodre), Chatto & Windus
  • 1995 New Writing Volume 4 (editor with Alan Hollinghurst), Vintage
  • 1997 Babel Tower, Chatto & Windus
  • 1997 New Writing Volume 6 (editor with Peter Porter), Vintage
  • 1998 Elementals: Stories of Fire and Ice, Chatto & Windus
  • 1998 Oxford Book of English Short Stories (editor), Oxford University Press
  • 2000 On Histories and Stories: Selected Essays, Chatto & Windus
  • 2000 The Biographer’s Tale, Chatto & Windus
  • 2001 Portraits in Fiction, Chatto & Windus
  • 2001 The Bird Hand Book (with photographs by Victor Schrager), Graphis Inc. (New York)
  • 2002 A Whistling Woman, Chatto & Windus
  • 2003 Little Black Book of Stories, Chatto & Windus
  • 2009 The Children’s Book, Chatto & Windus
  • 2011 Ragnarok: The End of the Gods, Canongate

Personal life

A. S. Byatt married Ian Charles Rayner Byatt in 1959 and had a daughter, as well as a son who was killed in a car accident at the age of 11. The marriage was dissolved in 1969. She has two daughters with her second husband Peter John Duffy.. Accessed 2010-09-11.

Byatt has been engaged in a feud with her novelist sister Margaret Drabble since she learned that Drabble wrote about their family’s tea set, a tea set which Byatt had intended to write about herself. The two sisters have also disagreed about the appropriate portrayal of their mother. The pair seldom see each other and don’t read each other’s books. Daily Telegraph, retrieved 22nd September 2011. However, in a BBC interview from 1991, Byatt states that their rivalry is "terribly overstated by gossip columnists" and that the sisters "always have liked each other on the bottom line"Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, 1991-06-16.

Prizes and awards

  • 1986 PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award, for Still Life
  • 1987 Hon. Dlitt, Bradford
  • 1990 Booker Prize for Fiction, Possession: A Romance
  • 1990 CBE
  • 1990 Irish Times International Fiction Prize Possession: A Romance
  • 1991 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region, Best Book) Possession: A Romance
  • 1991 Honorary Doctorate from the University of York
  • 1991 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Durham
  • 1992 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Nottingham
  • 1993 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Liverpool
  • 1994 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Portsmouth
  • 1995 Honorary Doctorate from the University of London
  • 1995 Premio Malaparte (Italy)
  • 1995 Aga Khan Prize for Fiction, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye
  • 1998 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye
  • 1999 DBE
  • 1999 Hon. DLitt from the University of Cambridge
  • 2000 Hon. Fellow, London Institute
  • 2000 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Sheffield
  • 2004 Honorary Doctorate from the University of Kent
  • 2004 Fellow, University College London
  • 2002 Shakespeare Prize (Germany)
  • 2007 Honorary degree from the University of Winchester.
  • 2009 Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix (Canada)
  • 2009 Man Booker Prize, The Children’s Book (shortlist)
  • 2010 Honorary Doctorate from the Leiden University
  • 2010 James Tait Black Memorial Prize, The Children’s Book

Member of

  • 1974–77 Social Effects of Television Advisory Group BBC
  • 1977–82 Associate of Newnham College, Cambridge
  • 1978–84 Board of Communications and Cultural Studies, CNAA
  • 1985–87 Board of Creative and Performing Arts, CNAA
  • 1987–88 Kingman Committee of Inquiry into the teaching of English Language, (Department of Education and Science)
  • 1984–88 Management Committee, Society of Authors, (Deputy Chairman, 1986, Chairman, 1986–88);
  • 1993–98 Board, British Council, (Member of Literature Advisory Panel, 1990–98).