Jeanette Winterson

Jeanette Winterson (1959) grew up in Manchester. While studying English at the University of Oxford, she wrote her acclaimed debut novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, which won the Whitbread Award. Since then, she has established herself as one of Britain's most distinctive literary voices, publishing an impressive body of work that includes novels, short-story collections, children's books, and memoirs. In recognition of her contribution to literature, she was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2018. 

About One Aladdin Two Lamps 

With her execution looming, a woman is fighting for her life. Every night she tells a story. Every morning, she lives one more day. One Aladdin Two Lamps cracks open the legendary story of One Thousand and One Nights to show how its questions are still relevant to our lives today. Is love the most important thing in the world? What makes us happy?

In her guise as Aladdin, Jeanette Winterson asks us to reread what we think we know and look again at how fiction works in our lives, giving us the courage to change our own narratives and alter endings we wish to subvert. As a young working-class woman, with no obvious future beyond factory work or marriage, Winterson realised through the power of books that she could read herself as fiction as well as fact.

Weaving together fiction, magic and memoir, this remarkable book is a tribute to the age-old tradition of storytelling and a radical step into the future – an invitation to look more closely at our own stories, and to imagine the world anew.