Jeanette Winterson

British novelist Jeanette Winterson released her first autobiographical novel, Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, in 1985 at the age of 25. It went on to win the Whitbread Prize for a First Novel, became one of the books of the decade, and was adapted to a BAFTA-winning television drama in 1990.

But rewind a few years and the story was not always so triumphant. The girl of this first novel was adopted by Pentecostal parents who expected her to become a missionary, and when instead she fell in love with a girl they attempted to have her exorcised – a turbulent time that mirrored Jeanette’s own life.

She left home at age 16, and after attending college she supported herself in numerous jobs while studying for an English degree at Oxford University.

After such an astounding beginners leap into the realm of literary acclaim with her debut novel, Jeanette only had more to give. Now with more than 20 novels and several literary awards under her belt, including a stage adaptation and theatre work, Jeanette was awarded an OBE in 2006.

26 years after her first novel, the northern novelist has written its companion – a non-fictional account of her childhood and her quest to find her biological family. Titled Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? – the question her adopted mother asked when she threw her out age 16 – Jeanette explains to Mariella that she doesn’t see the book as a memoir, but ‘an experiment with experience’.

VIDEO: Jeanette Winterson describes how her harrowing autobiography developed as she was writing it