Jeanette Winterson is an acclaimed English author known for her exploration of gender polarities and sexual identity in her novels. Born on August 27, 1959, in Manchester, England, she was adopted and raised in Accrington, Lancashire. Her upbringing in a strict Pentecostal Evangelist community provides the background for her semi-autobiographical first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, published in 1985.

Winterson graduated from St Catherine's College, Oxford, and later worked as an assistant editor at Pandora Press in London. A prominent voice in British fiction, she was named one of the 20 "Best of Young British Writers" by Granta and the Book Marketing Council in the 1980s.

She has received numerous accolades for her work, including a Whitbread Prize for a First Novel, a BAFTA Award for Best Drama, the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the E. M. Forster Award, and the St. Louis Literary Award. Winterson has twice won the Lambda Literary Award. For her services to literature, she has been honored with the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Her novels have been translated into almost 20 languages, and she has adapted Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit for BBC television in 1990. Winterson continues to be a significant figure in literature, broadcasting, and teaching creative writing.