SOURCE: Field, Michelle. “Jeanette Winterson: ‘I Fear Insincerity.’” Publishers Weekly 242, no. 12 (20 March 1995): 38–39.

In the following essay, Field provides an overview of Winterson's life and literary career, incorporating Winterson's comments on her writings and artistic concerns.

Opinion is sharply divided about Jeanette Winterson, far more than any other British writer. She has been subject to so many misleading caricatures that one does not expect her to have all the childlike charm of a Joan of Arc—though one is prepared to withstand another likeness to St. Joan: her forceful belief in herself.

Because Winterson gives few interviews, many profiles of her are written entirely on rumor. Winterson says that because she lives in a world of half-true stories about her, she has become a master of half-truths herself. “People make up so many things about me that I don't think they should have it all their own way. Two...