28 April: Aneira King (JCR), ‘Creating writers: an exploration of women’s religious spaces and the development of authors in Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Antonia White’s Frost in May’
Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Antonia White’s Frost in May are semi-autobiographical Bildungsroman novels which both follow the development of young writers as they grow up in conservative religious spaces. This seminar will explore how literature and religion interact in the lives of the protagonists, with literature informing personal faith and religion an influence on the authors’ works. It will further assess interaction with religious and parental authority figures, and the reparative power of writing after betrayal by parents and religious communities.
Biography: I am a third year Theology student interested in the relationship between theology and literature. I am currently writing my dissertation on the importance of religion and literature for the emergence of Jeanette Winterson and Antonia White as authors from religious communities as retold in their semi-autobiographical novels Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Frost in May. Outside of my degree, I am co-president of Newnham College Poetry Society and Newnham College Book Club.