A.S. Byatt and the Heliotropic Imagination

A S Byatt's novel 'Possession: A Romance' attracted international acclaim in 1990, winning two prestigious prizes. Since then, there has been a lot more Byatt published and much of this has yet to be fully addressed. Enter Jane Campbell's new book, which is a comprehensive critical reading of Byatt's fiction, from The Shadow of the Sun and The Game in the 1960s to A Whistling Woman, which was published in 2002. The book begins with an overview of Byatt's writing and, drawing on her interviews and essays, sets forth her critical principles. Following this introduction, a chronologically structured account traces her development as a novelist and short story writer. Campbell uses a critical perspective appropriate to the author's individualistic feminist stance, stressing the breadth of Byatt's intellectual concerns, and her insistence on placing her women in a living, changing context of ideas and experience, especially their search for creative voice. Campbell also explores the ways in which A S Byatt has successfully negotiated a path between twentieth-century realism and postmodern experiment.