Antonia Susan Byatt
(born Aug. 24, 1936, Sheffield, Eng.) British novelist and scholar. Sister of
Margaret Drabble, she was educated at Cambridge and taught at University College, London. Her third novel
, The Virgin in the Garden (1978), won high acclaim; the sequel
Still Life (1985) followed.
Possession (1990), a virtuoso double narrative, won the 1990 Booker Prize, and both it and
Angels and Insects (1991) were adapted for film. Her story collections include
The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye (1995) and
Elementals (1998).
Degrees of Freedom (1965) was the first major study of
Iris Murdoch. In 2002 Byatt published the novel
A Whistling Woman, the last of a series of four novels — beginning with
The Virgin in the Garden — featuring the character Frederica Potter.
For more information on Antonia Susan Byatt, visit Britannica.com.
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.