This chapter presents an introduction to the life and works of Jeanette Winterson. Winterson was born in Manchester on 27 August 1959 and brought up in the nearby mill-town of Accrington, Lancashire, by her adoptive parents, Constance and John William Winterson, in a strict Pentecostal Evangelist faith. Her novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit was published in 1985 and earned the Whitbread First Novel Award. In 1990, Oranges was made into a TV drama, winning two BAFTA awards (for Best TV Drama Series and for Best Actress) and the Prix d'argent for Best Script in 1991. Winterson's work has been placed in one or other of the boxes labelled ‘lesbian fiction’ or ‘postmodernist fiction’. However, the writer rejects both qualifications, particularly that of ‘lesbian writer’, and insists that she expects to be called simply ‘a writer’, as male authors usually are.