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When a greedy king wakes up one morning everything he owns has gone - blown across the sea to neighbouring Naples. When a poor and humble washerwoman wakes up that same morning her back yard is full of things that simply were not there the night before. Soon the king and the washerwoman meet for the first time and from then both their lives are due to change.

Winterson’s partly-autobiographical novel chronicles the struggles of a young girl brought up in a northern English town, caught between religious excess and human obsession. Jess’s domineering mother has brought her up to devote her life to Jesus, and to follow in her own footsteps as a preacher. Jess succeeds fairly well when it comes to proclaiming the Lord’s teachings. But then she falls in love with another girl, and is forced to reject once and for all the strident evangelism of her family.

The BBC’s television version caused controversy. In an introduction to the novel written in 1991, Winterson notes, ‘The BBC had more telephone calls after each episode of Oranges than for any other series or serial. It generated a great deal of debate and it seems that people found in it another way of looking at the world.’


Management Teaching use: Some organisations or institutions have 'missions', which prevent them from looking at their environment realistically. The religious sect at the centre of this text is an example of this. The discomfort and disillusion of the central character typifies the problems that some employees, or members, of the organisation can experience. There is clearly going to be a sense of alienation felt by 'newcomers' if there is no evidence of flexibility or compromise in the organisation. The dilemma for such an institution is when it is founded upon a set of rigid principles, which may not be relevant to a changing world. Discussion could deal with how far such an institution should be prepared to change or whether it would lose its integrity by doing so.

Linguistically inventive, The Powerbook is a love story set in cyberspace, Paris, Capri and London. Rich with allusion and allegory the novel centres on Ali also known as Alix who, while making others' dreams come true via the internet, discovers the possibilities of love for herself.

In a house called Tanglewreck, lives a girl called Silver and her guardian Mrs Rockerbye. Unbeknown to Silver, there is a family treasure in the form of a 17th century watch called The Timekeeper, and this treasure holds the key to the mysterious and frightening changes in time. When Silver goes on the run to try and protect herself and The Timekeeper, a remarkable and compelling adventure unfolds.

In this, her first collection of short stories, Winterson reveals all the facets of her extraordinary imagination. In prose that is full of imagery and word-play, she creates physical and psychological worlds that are at once familiar and yet shockingly strange.

In 2009, the Glyndebourne Festival of Opera reaches its 75th year. In commemoration of this event, Jeanette Winterson has brought together some of the best loved and most critically acclaimed authors writing today to pen stories inspired by opera. A foreword from Ralph Fiennes and an introduction by Jeanette Winterson are followed by: Alexander McCall Smith on Cos Fan Tutte; Ali Smith on Fidelio; Andrew Motion on Peter Grimes; Andrew O'Hagan on Eugene Onegin; Ann Enright on Rusalka; Colm Toibin on Pearl Fishers; Jackie Kay on The Makropulos Case; Joanna Trollope on L'Elisir d'Amore; John Mortimer on Cos - Fan Tutte; Julie Myerson on The Crowning of Poppaea; Kate Atkinson on La Traviata; Kate Mosse on Pelleas et Melisande; Lynne Truss on The Turn of the Screw; Marina Warner on Dido and Aeneas; Posy Simmonds double page of 'Glyndebourne Midsummer Night'; Ruth Rendell on Theodora; Sebastian Barry on Natoma; and, Toby Litt on Don Giovanni.