It's a secret
At a writers festival a few years ago, where she was speaking about her book this is what Jeanette said to me- as she responded to my comment on 'fundamentalist christians trying to cast out the devil - 'Keep your little devils they are the deepest source of your creativity! So everyone I say be creative and vote for JW.
Winsome Ruddock
When I first read this book and then watched it on television, I could not believe it, bacause that was my life. I remember saying to a freind just after it was televised, that is how it is when your parents are fundamental christians, but he looked at me in disbelief.
Juno Nolan
I identified with red haired girl wanting to live her life in her own way and rebelling from the path laid out for her, she is brave and at a very difficult time in my life helped me to be brave, proud less confused about my life, and more certain that I did not want to live the life my mother had and the life my father wanted me to live. I am now a Painter and I'm sure that if I had not discovered that book I would not have had the courage to live my life in the way that I wanted. Oranges showed that this was possible.
Lynnda Wardle
I had just come to live in England when I first picked up a copy of Oranges in a pile of books on the dining room floor where I was sleeping in house in Greenwich. Winterson's humour and disaffection really struck a chord for me - about living in a very conservative family (a bit like my own had been), about leaving home and making a new life. Her journey of discovery and of her sexual awakening felt like MY story! It made me want to be more honest about my life and then to write about it. It also put me on a new reading path, to find other books that would give me this same exciting reading experience. I have been on this journey evr since - thanks Jeanette!
Sarah Ramsey
As an angst-ridden young teenager, this narrator's wise, funny and powerful voice helped me face my own issues of sexuality, religion and a dominaneering mother, and made me reassess what it means to me to be female and to fall in love.
Ruth
I discovered Winterson when I was 14. This book articulated the complexity of female emotion, the interaction with family, positionings within the world, relations with other women, managing female ambition. The language reflected my own way of seeing and gave me the space to think. Young women exploring their sexuality do not have a voice and this book explored that journey.
Kate Wilkinson
This was the first book in which I saw a part of myself and a part that was not the prettiest nor the one I was most proud of, but Winterson's writing gave me hope by showing me myself and articulating that for me.
