:00:03. > :00:13.championship title for three years in the 1970s. Now it is time for
:00:13. > :00:13.
:00:13. > :00:18.HARDtalk. This is HARDtalk on the BBC. Jeanette Winterson was a
:00:18. > :00:22.twenty-something literary sensation in the 1980s. 'Oranges Are Not The
:00:23. > :00:31.Only Fruit' was a raw, taboo- busting semi-autobiographical novel
:00:31. > :00:35.about being abused, and being a lesbian. She also railed against
:00:35. > :00:43.those who asked her, how much is true, how much happened? Now she
:00:43. > :00:53.answers Haroun question. She just published her own memoir. She says
:00:53. > :01:15.
:01:15. > :01:23.To 20 unsung welcome to HARDtalk. Pinky. You burst onto the literary
:01:23. > :01:29.scene at the age of 26 with the semi-autobiographical novel,
:01:29. > :01:38.'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit'. About a poor goal adopted into end
:01:38. > :01:43.northern England house. She's kicked out of home. Now we have a
:01:43. > :01:50.man were, because you say the real version of events is even more
:01:50. > :01:55.painful. -- memoir. Before we gets into the memoir, let's get one
:01:55. > :02:01.thing straight. Is this pure, unadulterated fact now? The facts
:02:01. > :02:05.are facts. The truth is always changing. That is what I try and
:02:05. > :02:12.address in the book. I don't understand the difference. Facts
:02:12. > :02:19.are not always true, and truth is not always in the facts. The book
:02:19. > :02:25.is accurate. My depression, about find my birth mother, is true. Was
:02:25. > :02:29.I tried to deal with the book is how we always change the way we
:02:29. > :02:34.read a harrowing circumstances which alters the absolute truth. It
:02:34. > :02:39.is not in a tabloid newspaper, it is a state of mind. That is what
:02:39. > :02:45.fiction handles very well, States of mind. And the way we handle the
:02:45. > :02:51.past changes us as readers. The past is not fixed, the past is in
:02:51. > :02:56.your head. It is to do with form, some of what to do is put speech as
:02:56. > :02:59.in quotation marks. You have a librarian, who is central to
:02:59. > :03:04.education, who has the most extraordinary speeches which seemed
:03:04. > :03:13.to be a little bit too perfect. If you call this the truth, you call
:03:13. > :03:23.it NM wire, people have to trust that this is the rule version of
:03:23. > :03:26.
:03:26. > :03:31.facts as is possible. -- memoir. Fact sound better in real life.
:03:31. > :03:38.That exchange with the librarian which took place when I was 16, I'm
:03:39. > :03:45.sure I don't remember verbatim. I remember the situation. I'm a
:03:45. > :03:49.writer and that was in my diary. It must be immediate. His every word
:03:49. > :03:59.here exactly in the order it was said to you? The answer would be
:03:59. > :04:00.
:04:00. > :04:08.none. It was a painful, the real story, why did she decide to
:04:08. > :04:15.revisit it? I didn't it decided to we visit me. I never it wanted to
:04:15. > :04:20.find my real mother. I thought I was completely in control of how I
:04:20. > :04:25.understood the past and I was writing about my own life. Then I
:04:25. > :04:32.had a period when it was a big personal breaks down. A huge
:04:32. > :04:37.depression. It was a terrible time. From that, as I began to emerge,
:04:37. > :04:42.language as ever was the thing that pulled me out. Like dropping a rope
:04:42. > :04:52.down the well, and I was trying to drop it. I told stories to myself,
:04:52. > :04:52.
:04:52. > :04:56.just like when my mother locked me in the coal shed. I had 15,000
:04:56. > :05:01.words and there was a real drive behind that stories and it was a
:05:01. > :05:06.book that I had to write. It was not a diary for myself. It was not
:05:06. > :05:11.just the depression or the pain, you wrote in your for words in a
:05:11. > :05:16.1991 book, but to serve up the lukewarm remains of yesterday's
:05:16. > :05:26.dinner is profitable and popular, but it is also wrong. The juicier
:05:26. > :05:27.
:05:27. > :05:33.that this was the party were trading? -- did you Taffia. I knew
:05:33. > :05:37.it made no difference. I knew I could write this. If I had the
:05:37. > :05:40.necessary energy and I thought that this would move other people rather
:05:40. > :05:44.than myself than I was prepared to go forward with it. You have to
:05:44. > :05:53.have your own is recut and integrity that is the only
:05:53. > :06:01.benchmark of writers. The central characters of your booking 'Oranges
:06:01. > :06:06.Are Not The Only Fruit', apart from you is your mother. She is an
:06:06. > :06:12.enormous, monstrous figure in many ways. In the Christian
:06:12. > :06:17.fundamentalists, in her lovelessness, in her very size.
:06:17. > :06:22.Also, she's a wonderful vehicle for some of your great British
:06:22. > :06:32.understatement. There is a great line when Mrs windows and parades,
:06:32. > :06:34.
:06:34. > :06:40.Lord let me die. That would be harder my dad. -- Mrs Winter Sun.
:06:40. > :06:44.There is that working-class real wit. A lot of language which is
:06:44. > :06:48.Clear in that book. It is an oral tradition not a bookish tradition.
:06:48. > :06:52.It is very Alan Bennett's the way they talk to each other and make
:06:52. > :07:01.the most marvellous dramas that have little situations. She always
:07:01. > :07:06.used to do that. Life was a pre- debt experience. It was never mum?
:07:06. > :07:15.No, we had that particular kind of relationship and that was no
:07:15. > :07:20.windier the relationship I had with her. He said that she was this
:07:20. > :07:26.monstrous figure, you're almost display a sense of gratitude,
:07:26. > :07:30.unwittingly, she mortgage you into the person you are? Yes, she did.
:07:30. > :07:36.When I wrote 'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit', is a novel that I use
:07:36. > :07:41.myself as a fictional character. I was also been very defiant about my
:07:41. > :07:45.background and my mother, as it were Terry my life. That has
:07:45. > :07:52.changed over the years. She died in 1990 and that changed over the
:07:52. > :07:55.years. It's that the state during now? Yes I love her now because I
:07:55. > :08:00.understand it. When you understand someone you feel a sense of
:08:00. > :08:04.connection. Then you care more for them. You can see them for what she
:08:04. > :08:10.was, instead of a daily threat to my survival, which is what she felt
:08:10. > :08:15.like at the time. Now look at her, this fabulous intelligent woman
:08:15. > :08:20.squashed into her life. Of clear she wanted his life, these operatic,
:08:20. > :08:25.dramatic life. That would never be the case for her all those women in
:08:25. > :08:31.the 1950s he had nothing. One of the big revelations is that she
:08:31. > :08:38.decided to track down your birth mother eventually, successfully. He
:08:38. > :08:42.previously said that you disparage tracking down your mother? That's a
:08:42. > :08:47.good question. I thought it was a crazy idea and never wanted to do
:08:47. > :08:52.it. I had no sense of family life or belonging. I did not want a
:08:52. > :09:02.biological identity. I have made my own identity and think of myself as
:09:02. > :09:04.
:09:04. > :09:11.suffered invented, a lot of adopted kids do.S self-invented. I was
:09:11. > :09:18.clearing out my father's bungalow and I thought to is this child, he
:09:18. > :09:22.was adopted in 1960 on these ancient looking pieces of paper. It
:09:22. > :09:25.had a huge emotional impact. I would like to follow the story a
:09:25. > :09:30.little bit and see what happens. You can never follow a story a
:09:30. > :09:37.little bit, you have to go to the end. It took me a year to do it. It
:09:37. > :09:41.was shocking and scary. It was not a traditional joyful reunion two I
:09:41. > :09:51.don't think they artificially joyful. I think we get caught up in
:09:51. > :09:52.
:09:52. > :09:57.bespoke happy Hollywood endings. -- father happy. When 50 years have
:09:57. > :10:02.passed you leave very different and separate lives. I want people to
:10:03. > :10:06.feel less guilty about what they don't feel in the circumstances.
:10:06. > :10:11.You talk about your sense of remoteness and guilt that she did
:10:11. > :10:15.not want to be absorbed into your birth mother and her pre- existing
:10:15. > :10:22.large family? She had a very large family. But that this was awful.
:10:22. > :10:26.There was hundreds of them out there. I thought I cannot do this.
:10:26. > :10:36.I do not want to do this. Then you feel guilty because they treat you
:10:36. > :10:44.think there is something wrong with you. You you said your first
:10:44. > :10:54.meeting we car was a disaster, that you can argument? DG talked to her
:10:54. > :10:55.
:10:55. > :11:01.about how you wrote about her in an open way? Mrs Winterson said that
:11:01. > :11:11.she did not like the way he portrayed her? Khadija birth mother
:11:11. > :11:13.
:11:13. > :11:17.react to the way you portrayed her? -- how did your. It was very
:11:17. > :11:22.faithful. I do not remember what the librarian said, but remember
:11:22. > :11:29.what happened last year very clearly. I rated down afterwards. I
:11:29. > :11:37.wanted that to be absolutely accurate. How does she feel about
:11:37. > :11:41.this, been in print? The reason I haven't given her forename, it is
:11:41. > :11:44.that she does not want the Daily Mail turning up on her doorstep she
:11:44. > :11:49.was to carry on in the Pan Alley and privately. She is content with
:11:49. > :11:53.the fact that it is my story. What I have not done, is to go further
:11:53. > :12:00.than they did in the book. I did not explain about the arguments we
:12:00. > :12:10.had. No you did not. You had a tremendous line, I have no idea
:12:10. > :12:10.
:12:10. > :12:17.what happens next. So I once asked you what happened next. -- so why
:12:17. > :12:25.weren't. Les Stocker that your mental breakdown. -- let's talk
:12:25. > :12:33.about your. White you need to write about this? We talk about a
:12:33. > :12:38.physical in pacification of illness? It's like being in a
:12:38. > :12:47.haunted house. Things or write today. Then an invisible force
:12:47. > :12:55.blows you. It is you, it is in your head. It feels like something that
:12:56. > :13:02.is outside of you. I could do nothing. The trains came and I
:13:02. > :13:06.could not get on them. You are humiliated. The temptation is to go
:13:06. > :13:11.to the doctor and take pills, or get out of these. I was very clear
:13:11. > :13:16.that I had to go through with it. But then a wire had that clarity.
:13:16. > :13:20.Underneath all the horror, I the time I see this through. If I kill
:13:20. > :13:24.myself, that is the end. That is better than leaving some put
:13:24. > :13:31.together, false life, which is what would happen to me if I took
:13:31. > :13:36.medicine and tried to stop these. I felt sure of that. You expose these
:13:36. > :13:42.in the book. This makes it a compelling read. It is not a
:13:42. > :13:48.comfortable read. That sits very comfortably with your approach to
:13:48. > :13:51.writing. You want to shake people. You want people to be grabbed by
:13:51. > :13:59.their lapels when they are reading and be confronted with something
:13:59. > :14:03.that is awkward. I never got over that gospel tone. To say they saw
:14:03. > :14:08.that is not for Jesus anymore. That literature is there to make a
:14:08. > :14:11.difference. It should affect the way you think and feel. It should
:14:11. > :14:15.stick your perspective. What you can do with language when you write
:14:15. > :14:19.about something that is difficult, the language itself acts as a
:14:19. > :14:24.container, a safe place we can put the unbearable things. That allows
:14:24. > :14:29.the reader has to read it and feel the emotion and drama. And not be
:14:29. > :14:33.overwhelmed by it, but use it for themselves therapeutically. Do you
:14:33. > :14:37.think that women writers have a hurdle to some doubts in terms of
:14:37. > :14:41.trying to shake up the expectation of what it is to provide what they
:14:41. > :14:51.write on the written page two no, it is not a problem for women who
:14:51. > :14:57.
:14:58. > :15:02.write. He said in the past was. It is a problem for men who read. They
:15:02. > :15:07.expectations come from the outside. There is still an idea that if a
:15:07. > :15:12.man writes about personal things it is because he is very sensitive and
:15:12. > :15:19.if a woman does it is because she's writing a confessional. It's good
:15:19. > :15:29.that I use myself in my novels because it's like a biography. It
:15:29. > :15:29.
:15:29. > :15:34.is met a fiction. There is part of you that is using a form of punchy
:15:34. > :15:44.sentences, tough brutal language. It is probably to confront people,
:15:44. > :15:45.
:15:45. > :15:49.but it speaks to you or all of your in engulf. You would like to punch
:15:49. > :15:59.the infuriating person to the ground. People never commit murder
:15:59. > :16:02.
:16:02. > :16:07.There is clearly a rage state within year. IMA Northern career. I
:16:07. > :16:11.still have a temper. I think I always will. What I am not is
:16:11. > :16:15.somebody who bears grudges or present seeks revenge later. If we
:16:15. > :16:20.have a fight, we have a fight and it is over and done with. I think
:16:20. > :16:26.that is better than being a mean- minded hypocrite who says it behind
:16:26. > :16:30.your back. Maybe it is a style issue. You have taken that
:16:30. > :16:38.publicity into your own fight over what counts as literature, most
:16:38. > :16:46.recently buying into the argument over Britain's top literary prize,
:16:46. > :16:53.which you feel that readability has taken precedence over good
:16:53. > :16:57.literature. Explain to me what you feel is the dichotomy there? This
:16:57. > :17:03.year, it was a disappointing list. There is no reason why literature
:17:03. > :17:10.should not be readable. It is meant to be envious. People are now
:17:10. > :17:14.afraid of what looks elitist or anything that says that it is not
:17:14. > :17:22.all entertainment or at the same level. All I have tried to do is a
:17:22. > :17:27.bad literature depends on language. The language has to be powerful.
:17:27. > :17:34.You cannot write a sentence in any old way and say it is literature. I
:17:34. > :17:37.am trying to talk about language has a real thing. Is this not
:17:37. > :17:45.creating a false dichotomy between what is high art and what is
:17:45. > :17:53.readable? No, because there isn't a dichotomy. I think high art is
:17:53. > :17:59.readable, but we are nervous about things. If you get something that
:17:59. > :18:03.you do not understand, you blame the book or the writer. Do you
:18:03. > :18:13.think part of this is you reacting to part of the criticism that has
:18:13. > :18:14.
:18:14. > :18:20.been levelled at your writing? I AM thinking that of one review of your
:18:20. > :18:30.board, one tends to approach it with more than a small amount of
:18:30. > :18:34.
:18:34. > :18:38.heart sing. I think it is probably my simplest pauper. -- pork. The
:18:38. > :18:44.thing about being a writer is you have to write a thing that you
:18:44. > :18:47.believe matters and find your own voice. I think you also have to
:18:47. > :18:54.have believe there is such a thing as literature and that matters as
:18:54. > :19:03.well. 25 years later, you don't think people will like the book,
:19:03. > :19:10.but others won't. You have been trenchant about politics as well as
:19:10. > :19:20.literature and indeed in your Mamma -- memoir, you write about your
:19:20. > :19:23.
:19:23. > :19:29.disdain for the traditional left and held - a -- how Uluru a poster
:19:29. > :19:35.child for the Reagan and Thatcher eras. You have moved, haven't you?
:19:35. > :19:40.You have moved quite a long way across the political spectrum.
:19:40. > :19:50.did vote for Margaret Thatcher in 1979 because she was a woman end
:19:50. > :19:53.knew the price of a loaf of bread. It was perfect for me, because that
:19:53. > :19:59.was who I needed to be. I have watched with increasing dismay the
:19:59. > :20:03.widening gap between rich and poor, the huge injustices in our world,
:20:03. > :20:09.the way that we have exploited other countries and the way we
:20:09. > :20:14.explode around work force. I feel really uncomfortable with that. I
:20:14. > :20:19.love the fact that we are occupying Wall Street. If that is political,
:20:19. > :20:27.I am very political. You clearly are. You have written most recently
:20:27. > :20:32.about the riots. You said that the riots that were in Britain over the
:20:32. > :20:36.summer were malicious, distracted and Eddie social. Unlike the riots,
:20:36. > :20:40.what the papers have done might be all those things, but they have
:20:40. > :20:45.been worse because it was not mind less. It was done deliberately to
:20:45. > :20:50.turn a profit at the expense of a social order. Suggesting that were
:20:50. > :20:53.bakers have done has been criminal? Yes. It amazes me that everybody
:20:53. > :20:58.has been able to carry on with business as normal as though there
:20:58. > :21:04.are not crimes against humanity. Crimes against humanity is a very
:21:04. > :21:08.strong phrase. Good. That is what we use when we talk about people
:21:08. > :21:13.being guilty of war crimes. I would use it about Tony Blair, for
:21:13. > :21:17.instance. Somebody has to take responsibility for the way the
:21:17. > :21:22.world is. Or whether that is dead bodies in Iraq or the fact that the
:21:22. > :21:27.world economy has dipped into complete chaos. It does not happen
:21:28. > :21:32.by chance, it happens because people, usually men, take enormous
:21:32. > :21:37.risks. You think equally that it is the duty of writers to be
:21:37. > :21:45.politically engaged? Yes. I do not been there is a separation between
:21:45. > :21:49.writing and the rest of life. It is very important to be engaged.
:21:49. > :21:53.There is nothing passive about reading and writing books. It is
:21:53. > :21:57.about forcing your minds to think about things differently. It is a
:21:57. > :22:01.thinking and feeling experience. That is what we need in the world.
:22:01. > :22:11.I am wondering where this leads you. You talk about the need to engage
:22:11. > :22:12.
:22:12. > :22:18.and the need to confront people and may decide the uncomfortable. You
:22:18. > :22:21.have a need to revisit your painful early adulthood. You were to track
:22:21. > :22:27.down your birth never. All those things that you said you would
:22:27. > :22:32.never do. I am just wondering where next for you? Are you looking
:22:32. > :22:42.forward to the next shift that you're going to make? Or a year now
:22:42. > :22:44.
:22:44. > :22:48.I do not want to die comfortably in my bed. You keep working in every
:22:48. > :22:54.way and to you drop dead. That is the only way to do it. You like the
:22:54. > :22:59.idea of breathlessness? It is an engagement with life, rather than
:22:59. > :23:03.accepting life. I do want to make a difference. I were to be
:23:03. > :23:13.politically involved. I used strong language because that is the way I
:23:13. > :23:15.
:23:15. > :23:20.feel about the world. A writer has said, this is what happens when men
:23:20. > :23:28.regard each other as useful objects. That seems to be mayor where we are
:23:28. > :23:35.now. Denote what the next project will be? It will be another book...
:23:35. > :23:39.Another novel? Yes. The visit has been a while. I lost interest in it
:23:40. > :23:44.as a form because I was doing a lot of other things. I have written a
:23:44. > :23:51.lot of books in my life, so sometimes you need to pull back