A.S. Byatt is a highly respected author, renowned for her novels and short stories. Born as Antonia Susan Byatt on August 24, 1936, she is famously known by her pen name, A.S. Byatt. She was a teacher before she became a full-time writer. Byatt has had a successful career as a writer, with her novel "Possession" winning the prestigious Booker Prize. She was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1990 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1999.
Byatt is a distinguished critic and a prolific writer of fiction. Her works include the Booker Prize winner "Possession," "The Biographer's Tale," and the quartet, "The Virgin in the Garden," "Still Life," "Babel Tower," and "A Whistling Woman." She has also published highly acclaimed collections of short stories, such as "Sugar and Other Stories," "The Matisse Stories," "The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye," "Elementals," and "Little Black Book of Stories." Byatt's writing is known for its intellectual depth and her ability to weave together complex narratives that explore themes of identity, sexuality, and knowledge.
In addition to her achievements as a writer, Byatt has received numerous academic honors and prizes. She is an Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, and Somerville College, Oxford, and has received honorary degrees from several universities. She has won several prizes for her writing, including the PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Of Fiction prize, the Booker Prize, the Irish Times/Aer Lingus International Fiction Prize, the Eurasian section of Best Book in Commonwealth Prize, the Premio Malaparte, the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, the Shakespeare Prize, and the David Cohen Prize for Literature.
Byatt's personal life has been marked by a long-running feud with her novelist sister, Margaret Drabble, over the alleged appropriation of a family tea-set in one of her novels. The pair seldom see each other and each does not read the books of the other. Byatt was married twice and has four children. She was educated at Sheffield High School, The Mount School, York, Newnham College, Cambridge, Bryn Mawr College, Philadelphia, USA, and Somerville College, Oxford. Her writing is informed by her academic background and her wide-ranging interests in literature, art, and culture.