Jeanette Winterson is one of the most admired and discussed of her generation of British novelists. Her first novel achieved remarkable success and, although her succeeding ones have often been more controversial—she is capable, whether intentionall...

O.K., so she borrowed the plot, such as it is, from a Pasolini movie—Teorema (1968), with an unforgettable Terence Stamp in the lead role—and the novel is almost too cleverly constructed, too pleased with its own tidy symmetries. But those are the only quibbles I’ve...

O.K., so she borrowed the plot, such as it is, from a Pasolini movie— Teorema (1968), with an unforgettable Terence Stamp in the lead role—and the novel is almost too cleverly constructed, too pleased with its own tidy symmetries. But those are the only quibbles...

In the following interview, Winterson discusses her approach to fiction, her aesthetic concerns and artistic development, and her preoccupation with religious, gender, and sexual issues.

In the following essay, Burns examines Winterson's effort to revitalize postmodern language and social imagination through the use of fantasy, metafictional disruptions, and eroticized prose that link sexual desire and passion to the power of words.

In the following essay, Seaboyer examines the variety of linguistic and intertextual repetitions that structure The Passion, arguing that the novel's setting during the Napoleonic Wars and its thematic focus on death and mutilation exemplify the relationship between the psychoanalytic death drive and the rise of modern European nationalism.