She was also prolific as a critic, commentator, broadcaster and committee member, and was described by AN Wilson as one of “the tricoteuses who grace every London literary occasion” along with Beryl Bainbridge and Bernice Rubens. List of Honorary Fellows". University College London. 22 December 2020. Archived from the original on 6 August 2022.

Byatt's novella Morpho Eugenia was included in Angels & Insects (1992), which was turned into the eponymous 1995 film; that film received an Academy Award for Best Costume Design in 1997. [6] [25] The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". The Times. 5 January 2008 . Retrieved 10 January 2016. Byatt's relationship with her sister Margaret Drabble was sometimes strained due to the presence of autobiographical elements in both their writing. While their relationship was no longer especially close and they did not read each other's books, Drabble described the situation as "normal sibling rivalry" [16] and Byatt said it had been "terribly overstated by gossip columnists" and that the sisters "always have liked each other on the bottom line." [17] Byatt was an agnostic, though she maintained an affinity for Quaker services. [10] [15] She enjoyed watching snooker, tennis, and football. [15] [18] Her publisher Chatto & Windus said: “We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Dame Antonia Byatt, one of the most significant writers and critics of our time. She died peacefully at home surrounded by close family.” Byatt, A. S. (November 1979). "Judging the David Higham Award". Literary Review. They said when they invited me to judge the David Higham award for first novels this year that it would not be too onerous—about 20 books, they said. There were, in fact, 37.It was inspired, she said, by the realisation that so many of the offspring of the great children’s writers of that time had miserable childhoods. Some commentators suggested that the grief and guilt she felt over the death of her own son gave it an extra power. American writer Jay Parini in The New York Times, wrote "a plenitude of surprises awaits the reader of this gorgeously written novel. A. S. Byatt is a writer in mid-career whose time has certainly come, because Possession is a tour de force that opens every narrative device of English fiction to inspection without, for a moment, ceasing to delight." Also "The most dazzling aspect of Possession is Ms. Byatt's canny invention of letters, poems and diaries from the 19th century". [3] Gadd, Stephen (11 September 2017). "AS Byatt scoops prestigious Danish literary prize". The Copenhagen Post. Archived from the original on 9 January 2020 . Retrieved 12 September 2017. a b c d e "AS Byatt, ingenious and cerebral novelist who won the Booker Prize for Possession—obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 17 November 2023 . Retrieved 17 November 2023.

The novel reflects the various meanings of the word possession, from the obsessive urge to possess, which drives some individuals to extreme behaviour to get what they want, to love itself. The novel examines, in a humane way, the relationship of love with shame, daring and loss.

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Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? Byatt's literary agent, Zoe Waldie, said the author "held readers spellbound" with writing that was "multi-layered, endlessly varied and deeply intellectual, threaded through with myths and metaphysics."

Woman's Hour Drama – Possession (Programme Information)". BBC Media Centre. BBC . Retrieved 3 June 2013. Mundler, Helen E. (2003). Intertextualité dans l'œuvre d'A. S. Byatt (Intertextuality in the work of A. S. Byatt). Paris: Harmattan. ISBN 2-7475-4084-7. The two travel to the village where LaMotte lived. They have a chance encounter with the owner of Seal Court, LaMotte's former home, and manage to procure an invitation to visit. There, Roland and Maud discover a large bundle of letters sent between Ash and LaMotte that detail their developing love. Roland and Maud's theories have been proven correct. They feel the need to keep their discoveries private as many other academics are chasing similar leads. Roland and Maud feel a sense of ownership over, or possession of, the story of Ash and LaMotte.I would rather have lived alone, so, if you would have the truth. But since that might not be- and is granted to almost none- I thank God for you- if there must be a Dragon- that He was You…” LaMotte was a Victorian poet who did not receive much recognition in her time. But modern feminist scholars, like Maud, have extensively studied her and her work. LaMotte is an intelligent and self-possessed woman. However, she always remains somewhat of a mystery. Byatt shows that there will always be a distance between scholar's interpretations and reality. a b "Murakami Projected to Win the Nobel Prize". Poets & Writers. 2012. And the list goes on and on, including such contemporary literary greats as Kazuo Ishiguro, Ursula Le Guin, David Malouf, Salman Rushdie, A. S. Byatt, Milan Kundera, Julian Barnes, and John Ashbery... a b c d e f McGrath, Charles (9 October 2009). "The Saturday Profile: A Novelist Whose Fiction Comes From Real Lives". The New York Times. Ms. Byatt has three grown daughters (a son died in an accident at age 11) and is a proud, even doting, parent and grandparent. After attending the University of Cambridge, she married in 1959 and moved to Durham. It was during Byatt's time at university that she began working on her first two novels, subsequently published by Chatto & Windus as Shadow of a Sun (1964; reprinted in 1991 with its originally intended title, The Shadow of the Sun) and The Game (1967). Byatt took a teaching job in 1972 to help pay for the education of her son. In the same week she accepted, a drunk driver killed her son as he walked home from school. He was 11 years of age. Byatt spent a symbolic 11 years teaching, then began full-time writing in 1983. The Virgin in the Garden (1978) was the first of The Quartet, [4] a tetralogy of novels that continued with Still Life (1985), Babel Tower (1996) and A Whistling Woman (2002).

Byatt was educated at two independent boarding schools, Sheffield High School and The Mount School, a Quaker boarding school at York. [7] Dame Antonia Susan Duffy DBE HonFBA ( née Drabble; 24 August 1936 – 16 November 2023), known professionally by her former married name, A. S. Byatt ( / ˈ b aɪ . ə t/ BY-ət), [1] was an English critic, novelist, poet and short story writer. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages. [2] [3] Byatt became a CBE in 1990 and a DBE in 1999. In 2014, a coleopterist working in Central and South America named a species of iridescent beetle in her honour (Euhylaeogena byattae Hespenheide), inspired by her portrayal of naturalists in the novella ‘Morpho Eugenia’ in Angels and Insects (1992). She received the Erasmus Prize in 2016, awarded by the king of the Netherlands at a ceremony in the Royal Palace of Amsterdam. To her immense frustration, what interested the press most about her was her difficult relationship with her younger sister Margaret Drabble, who became a bestselling novelist some decades before Antonia achieved the same feat. They were cast as the Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine of the literary world, and there were suggestions that Antonia’s late success was driven by a determination not just to escape Margaret’s shadow but to eclipse her in turn. If this was true, she arguably succeeded.

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Possession told the story of two romances: a love affair between two Victorian poets, and the parallel narrative of two present-day academics trying to uncover the truth about that relationship and falling for each other in the process. AS Byatt forsook the lengthy interior monologues of her earlier fiction and, in concentrating on the drama of the narrative, revealed the full power of her artistry. Byatt was a judge on many literary award panels, including the Betty Trask Award, the David Higham Prize for Fiction, [27] the Hawthornden Prize and the Booker. [6] She also wrote for the media, including for The Times Literary Supplement, British journal Prospect and newspapers The Guardian, The Independent and The Sunday Times. [6] [28] [29] Awards and honours [ edit ] Byatt, pictured in Amsterdam in 2011 We mourn her loss, but it's a comfort to know that her penetrating works will dazzle, shine and refract in the minds of readers for generations to come," Farmer said. The novel concerns the relationship between two fictional Victorian poets, Randolph Henry Ash (whose life and work are loosely based on those of the English poet Robert Browning, or Alfred, Lord Tennyson, whose work is more consonant with the themes expressed by Ash, as well as Tennyson's having been poet-laureate to Queen Victoria) and Christabel LaMotte (based on Christina Rossetti), [3] as uncovered by present-day academics Roland Michell and Maud Bailey. Following a trail of clues from letters and journals, they collaborate to uncover the truth about Ash and LaMotte's relationship, before it is discovered by rival colleagues. Byatt provides extensive letters, poetry and diaries by major characters in addition to the narrative, including poetry attributed to the fictional Ash and LaMotte.