A.S. Byatt

A. S. Byatt was born Antonia Susan Drabble, the daughter of John Drabble, a barrister, and Kathleen Bloor, a scholar of Robert Browning. She was educated at two independent boarding schools, Sheffield High School and the Quaker Mount School in York. From there, she went on to study at Newnham College, Cambridge, Bryn Mawr College in the United States, and Somerville College, Oxford. She is married to Peter John Duffy, her second husband, and has three daughters. Byatt has taught English and literature at the Central School of Art and Design as well as the University of London. A distinguished critic and reviewer as well as novelist, Byatt’s novels include the Booker Prize-winning Possession, The Biographer’s Tale and the Frederica Potter quartet, which includes The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower, and A Whistling Woman. She is also an accomplished writer of short stories. Her story collections include Sugar and Other Stories, The Matisse Stories, The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye, Elementals and Little Black Book of Stories.