Winterson to take up university post in home city

Acclaimed author Jeanette Winterson is to become a professor of creative writing.

The writer of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit will begin a two-year stint at the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing in October.

The Manchester-born author will hold a postgraduate MA workshop and an MA seminar, as well as delivering undergraduate lectures, as well as hosting four public events a year at the university’s Martin Harris Centre, with guests from the literary world. Previous holders of the post include Colm Toibin and Martin Amis.

Her first novel, the semi-autobiographical Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, was published in 1985 when she was 25.

It went on to become an international best-seller and inspire a popular BBC television adaptation.

An author of novels, screenplays, children’s books and essays, her latest book is the memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?

Ms Winterson said: “I am from Manchester and the north is part of me; how I write, as well as who I am.

“Let’s see what happens next.”