Fay Weldon – författare

A love letter to Jane Austen and to the power of reading by an icon of British literature'Wise and wonderfully funny' The Times'Splendid'Guardian'It should be required reading'New York Times Book ReviewA special new edition of a modern classic, celebrating Jane Austen's 250th birthday: blending truth and fiction, the delightful collection of letters Fay Weldon sent her 'niece' about reading Jane Austen, the act of creation and the joys of writingIn this charming sequence of fictional letters - inspired by those Jane Austen sent to her own niece - 'Aunt Fay' writes to her niece Alice, an eighteen-year-old student and aspiring writer with green hair and zero interest in reading Austen for her college English class.As Aunt Fay responds to her niece's complaints, what begins as a passionate defence of the joys and rewards of wide reading, soon becomes a sparkling tribute to Austen's enduring brilliance - and an exploration of the craft and pleasure of fiction itself. Witty, ironic, and full of deep wisdom, Letters to Alice is a love letter to books from one of British literature's most original voices.'Shrewd and funny'Times Literary Supplement'Full of pithy reflections on Jane Austen's life and the society of the day . . . full of unsuspected wisdom'Daily Telegraph

The one and only Fay Weldon tells the story of her turbulent and controversial life.From the 1930s to the 2000s, Fay Weldon has seen and lived our times. As a child in New Zealand, young and poor in London, unmarried mother, wife, lover, playwright, novelist, feminist, anti-feminist, spag-bol-cook, winer-and-diner, there are few waterfronts that she hasn’t covered, few battles she hasn’t fought. An icon to many, a thorn-in-the-flesh to others, she has never failed to excite, madden, or interest. Her life and times cover love, sex, babies, blokes, poverty, work, politics, and not a few Very Famous Names.Moving from New Zealand to London to Scotland, from the UK to points east and west, Weldon has sipped, gulped, and sometimes spat out the things that make us what we are today.

Sappho är en ung begåvad manusförfattare som gift sig med den nitton år äldre änklingen Gavin. Hon har även blivit styvmor till hans två barn. Något som får ödesdigra konsekvenser. För att undvika en gruvlig konflikt med sin styvdotter lämnar Sappho sina dagböcker i sin mors vård, med uppmaningen att INTE läsa dem. Vilket modern Emily naturligtvis gör, hon är Freudiansk psykoanalytiker och tar uppmaningen som en invit. Därtill diskuterar hon innehållet med sin Jungianske granne och älskare. Med intelligent humor driver Fay Weldon med psykoanalysens olika riktningar. Men mest av allt är det en klok, övertygande och engagerande berättelse om ett modernt familjedrama, skriven med författarens typiskt sardoniska touch. Fay Weldon - författaren bakom den stora succén "En hondjävuls liv och lustar" fortsätter att skriva och får utmärkta recensioner i Storbritannien och övriga världen.

Illuminations from the dark side.Mothers and children, lovers and wives, carers and betrayers. Some characters struggle, some dance or fly, some try suicide or murder. They may resort to reason and unreason. All of them make choices.Deft, spare and incisively intelligent, Fay Weldon’s collection of short stories is shot through with her needling moral sense and her vibrant humour.

A provocative view of modern society weaved into a tale of explosive love and, perhaps, even, black magic.Scandalous Eleanor Darcy, wild young wife of a world-famous economist, sketches her vision of Utopia to two journalists, Hugo Vansitart and Valarie Jones. In glorious detail, she describes an earthly paradise of peace, love and technological progress where sex is plentiful and money does not exist. Such is Eleanor’s charisma that, to their own astonishment, Hugo and Valerie abandon their families and set up home together in a Holiday Inn.

An astonishing novel that probes into the strange world of genetic engineering.Joanna May thought herself unique, indivisible – until one day, to her hideous shock, she discovered herself to be five: though childless she was a mother; though an only child she was surrounded by sisters young enough to be her daughers – Jane, Julie, Gina and Alice, the clones of Joanna May.How will they withstand the shock of first meeting? And what of the avenging Carl, Joanna’s former husband and the clones’ creator: will he take revenge for his wife’s infidelity and destroy her sisters one by one?In this astonishing novel, Fay Weldon weaves a web of paradox quite awesome in its cunning. Probing into the strange world of genetic engineering, The Cloning of Joanna May raises frightening questions about our identity as individuals – and provides some startling answers. Funny, serious, revolutionary, this is the work of a master storyteller at the height of her powers.

A brilliant and caustic cautionary tale from one of Britain’s best-loved and most controversial writers.Hattie and Martyn are a decent, hard-working, ecologically-minded young couple – partners with a new baby, bickering over whether they should get married or not and how to arrange their lives in a morally sustainable way. Hattie has given up work to look after baby Kitty, but she is, frankly, bored by domesticity. They meet Agnieszka, a Polish domestic paragon who's married to a bus driver back home and is sending money back to her old mother and sister. Morally responsible couple that they are, Martyn and Hattie take pity and invite her to live with them.Hattie eventually succumbs to temptation and asks Agnieszka to baby-sit, and soon she’s back at full-time work. In fact life is pretty much as it was before the baby came along, except the house is cleaner and better organized, and she's galloping ahead in her career. Martyn is thrilled and wants a marriage ceremony but Hattie refuses: life is perfect as it is, thanks to the existence of Agnieszka, who is modest, docile, prepared to work for a pittance, and not even too pretty for comfort. And if she tells the occasional lie – the little sister turns out to be a child – and her social attitudes are atrocious, well, they can be overlooked. She'll learn our ways along with the English language.But soon, things begin to sour. Martyn and Agnieszka grow closer and it occurs to Hattie now that baby Kitty, given a choice, would choose Agnieszka over her. Her friends are warning her – but that's too vulgar for consideration. And their lives are by now hopelessly intertwined – it's too late. And so the downward spiral continues as visas, a marriage of convenience and even her own friends and family conspire to force Hattie out of her home and her partner's bed …

A spiky, feisty, hilarious collection of stories that expose women’s clumsy, often doomed, attempts to negotiate a smooth path through life.Abandoned wives remain as lingering presences in the homes of their ex-husband’s new girlfriends; beautiful young models find their misdemeanours exposed for all the world to see in the tabloids; middle-aged women get swept off their feet and into the criminal underworld by charismatic con-men; young trophy wives get thrown in jail after over-exuberant cavorting on their private yachts; mothers beg their thirty something career-minded daughters to freeze their eggs in the hope that they may one day bear their grandchildren.Bold, glamorous, sexy, unrepentant, Fay Weldon’s heroines offer a quite unique view of the world as they face their trials without fear or trepidation. Both her legions of existing fans and new readers will be enthralled.

A delicious treat of wisdom for better self-awareness and satisfaction. Tackle anxiety, envy, guilt, while giving in to sex, food, friends, family, shopping – and chocolate.What makes women happy?Nothing, for more than ten minutes at a time, so stop worrying.In this new book, Fay Weldon offers wisdom gleaned from a remarkable life, a brilliantly successful career and a fair share of trouble. She explores what makes women happy, and what we can do to lead more rounded and desirable lives. Chapters contain sassy morals, illustrative and sympathetic stories, and a lot of frank advice to show women how to stop obssessing and feeling bad about themselves. Later chapters confront the four horses of a woman's apocalypse: despair, depression, isolation, and self-doubt.A blend of philosophy, storytelling and self-help, this inspirational work shows Weldon at the peak of her creative powers, as brisk, stylish and entertaining as ever.

A distillation of our times: eleven short stories from this brilliant contemporary writer.‘Watching Me, Watching You’ was Fay Weldon’s first collection of short stories. They vary widely in theme, while remaining avowedly feminist, sometimes bitter, sometimes angry, yet always handled with wit, irony and courage. A sense of sisterhood is one of the most important qualities a woman may possess and its loss, as in one particular story, ‘Alopecia’, can bring tragedy. On the other hand, in ‘Threnody’, a women’s commune can be gently mocked, and the failings of the leading characters are human rather than masculine.Fay Weldon’s observation is always wonderfully acute and ‘Watching Me, Watching You’ is dominated throughout by her humour and intensity of purpose, giving to these stories a marvellous strength and unity.

A novel of urban deceit and rural passion, of doctors, witches, birth and death.‘Many people dream of country cottages. Liffey dreamed for many years, and saw her dream come true one hot Sunday afternoon, in Somerset, in September… A trap closed around her. The getting of the country cottage, not the wanting – that was the trap.’Richard and Liffey, a young married couple, follow their dream of moving out of London to a country cottage in the middle of Somerset. Richard continues to live and work in London, coming to stay with Liffey only on weekends.Pregnant Liffey feels burdened, hampered, at the mercy of these biological impulses beyond her control.Then there are the odd neighbours, the Tuckers, to reckon with, and the looming shadow of Bella, Richard’s lover in London, threatening the rural idyll Liffey had for so long imagined.With wit and wisdom, Fay Weldon paints a funny and shocking picture of the conflicts within these seemingly conventional lives, conflicts which seem inevitably to stem from the eternal struggle between male and female.

A chilling tale that interweaves the post-Watergate world of American politics and the way in which our past indiscretions inevitably catch up with us.Isabel Acre’s journey through life has taken her from the Australian outback via the beds and alleys of Fleet Street and the seamier side of Washington high life to a comfortable home in London, a reputation as a serious journalist, and a husband in the new chore-sharing, child-rearing mould. Suddenly, however, the past which Isabel had thought safely behind her becomes the source of actual physical danger. With frightening ease, the worlds of political intrigue and murderous conspiracy intrude into the cosiness of her domestic life. Whom can she trust? Man? When she reveals to her husband that she long ago had an affair with a young American senator, a man who is now challenging for the Presidential nomination itself, and that her son is the love-child of that affair, even she cannot foresee the consequences. Love got her into the predicament in which she finds herself; but can love now get her out of it?

A savagely satirical tale of marital revenge.Madeleine wants revenge; Madeleine wants to be remembered: Madeleine wants love. Who doesn’t? Madeleine is ex-wife and chief persecutor of Jarvis, the architect. Why not? She hates him. Hilary is their daughter, growing fatter and lumpier every day under Madeleine’s triumphant care, and witness to the wrongs her mother suffered.For Jarvis has a clean new life with a clean new wife, Lily, and a nice new baby, Jonathan. The furniture is polished and there is orange juice for breakfast. Jarvis is content, or thinks he is, fending off Madeleine’s forays as best he can.Jarvis has a part-time secretary too – Margot, now the doctor’s wife, unremembered from the days of her youth. Margot, unacknowledged wife and mother, accepting, tending, nurturing his children and her own, complaisant in her lot.Then Madeleine, hurling out her dark reproaches from the other side of violent death, uncovers new familial links in the disruption she creates.

A fast-moving, elegant novel set in contemporary London in the glittering world of charity auctions, big business, high art, and more than enough money to spare.Take one wealthy businessman fresh from his second marriage to an avid, successful young woman; one ex-wife who happens to be a saint; one artist, and a portrait for sale; two women wearing Bulgari necklaces; add a touch of the supernatural, a big dose of envy, stir, and see what happens.

A brilliant, inventive and endlessly delightful new memoir from Fay Weldon, one of our most respected commentators on sex, relationships and gender, that picks up where her acclaimed Auto da Fay left off.Fay Weldon, one of our cleverest and best-loved novelists, returns to the rich material of her own eventful life in this stylish blend of memoir and fiction. Mantrapped is the continuing story of Weldon, writer, mother, daughter, sister, cook, campaigner, juggler of life, time, work and money. Weldon has been rich and poor, sad and happy, and throughout it all, well and truly mantrapped – but does not regret it one bit. From 1960s London (wild parties, no money) to 1970s Somerset (animals, wild parties, no money) Weldon has lived a life rich in adventure and courage. The things you regret, as she points out, are what you don't do, not what you do.In this vastly entertaining book she argues that in a world in which the writer can no longer hope to be anonymous, it is devious, and indeed dishonourable, to keep yourself out of your own books. True to her word, in Mantrapped we get Fay Weldon at her most charismatic, perceptive and entertaining.

When a marriage meets a therapist…Annette and Spicer make a perfect pair: he thirty-nine, wide-shouldered, square-jawed, and often likened to Harrison Ford; she slight, fair, delicately featured, and sometimes likened to Meryl Streep. He with a son (Jason, eleven) from a previous marriage, she with a daughter (Susan, thirteen) from a ditto. He and she, after ten years, expecting their own baby. But on this, the first day of the rest of their blissful lives, Spicer fails to kiss Annette goodbye as he leaves for the office.

Fay Weldon’s first novel, a sharp and witty parable of the way people see themselves.For several weeks, Esther Sussman had lived in a sordid flat in Earls Court. During the day she read science fiction novels. In the evenings she watched television. And she ate, and ate, and drank, and ate. She had not felt so secure since she spent her days in a pram. It had been her husband’s idea that they should go on a diet. Together they would fight middle-age flab and feel young again. It was the diet that had made Esther leave home. The lack of food had made her see things very clearly and she had looked at her life – the daily dusting, sweeping, cooking, washing-up – and found it all pointless. She had not felt strong enough for marriage, and so she escaped.From the fastness of her Earls Court retreat Esther starts to recount the events leading up to her revelation to her friend Phyllis. ‘I suppose you really do believe your happiness is consequent upon your size?’ she asks. Phyllis does; Esther does not and triumphantly sets out to prove her point.

A selection of lectures and essays contributed to newspapers, magazines and books over recent years, revised for this volume and all highly relevant to today.In these essays find a portrait of the times, to help us map our way through the new Garden of Eden, in which men hold the baby and women the mobile phone. The garden is timeless, its beauties are ineradicable, the angel’s blazing sword no longer bars the way – so what’s going wrong? Tricky to see the wood for the trees in this new-old land, hard to find a Third Way through: let this collection point the way.From the changing face of government, the feminisation of politics, the stamping of the warrior foot, to whence and whither Feminism, via the dangerous new cult of Therapism, to our turbulent and benighted Royals, brushing up against the famous (Roseanne, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jean Paul Gaultier) on the way – it’s all here. Plus a rare glimpse of the author’s life and loves.

A turbine-driven fantasy of love and revenge, values and morals: a witty and compellng elixir.Bernard Bellamy has done a deal. He’s sold out to the Devil, in all his forms. In return, he is promised that all his wishes will be granted, all his desires fulfilled. One of them, young Carmen Wedmore, is proving to be quite a challenge.Carmen lives in the new town of Fenedge, East Anglia, near her former schoolfriends Laura and Annie. The three girls dream of the day they’ll escape their dullsville existence. While Annie flies off with a fluttering, blipping heart to the snowcapped peaks and frothy rapids of New Zealand to join the man of her dreams and Laura marries, capably moving the population graph a few notches higher, Carmen stays in Fenedge, under the powerful clasp of Sir Bernard and Driver, the Devil’s agent. Disguised as a suave chauffeur, Driver cruises in his plush, shiny, sinister limo, stalking her every move.But Carmen becomes ever more determined to ride out the temptations laid in her path and not to sell her soul. Will she eventually succumb? Or will the Devil, for once, not have everything his own way?

‘Sparkling, sharply observing, insights delivered with a light touch that puts us in a good mood, however dark the comedy’ SpectatorHere are nineteen glittery new tales about the way we live now, as lovers, partners, children, parents. Or alone.Stories of passion, desire, and necessary restraint;of the near future, the recent past;of old habits, new technology;of won’t-be mothers and would-be fathers;of houses, ancient and modern.Stories, in fact, to enlighten us to the true and timeless nature of the human condition in this the new age of self-knowledge.

An adventure story where love triumphs over lust, good will over satanic forces in the spirit of Dickens.An adventure story in which, you will be glad to hear, love finally triumphs over lust, good will over satanic forces, and sheer kindness over piercing malevolence. The pace never falters; the language glitters. The wit is as ever razor sharp. Yet laughter, tears and a lump in the throat are never far away.

This copulative sotry of passion, jealousy, fidelity and faithlessness is Weldon at her most provocative.Into the lives of Marion, Nora, Roaslie and Susan erupts Leslie Beck, an old flame not quite extinguished. Recently widowed, though somewhat weepy Leslie is still a man with the Life Force. To the four friends he is Leslie the Lucky, Leslie of the magnificent dong – his force forever pulls. Old secrets stir, old rivalries are resurrected ans cores are settled as the friends are catapulted back into their murky past.

Weldon on top form; Weldon tackling love, sex, ageing, death; Weldon at her wittiest best; Weldon unparalleled.Sophia is a thirty-four-year-old film editor living in Soho. Her only living relation (she thinks), her grandmother Felicity, is an eighty-three-year-old widow (several times) living in smart Connecticut. Sophia is torn between her delight in her freedom and a nagging desire for the family ties that everyone else grumbles about: casual sex is all very well, but who do you spend Christmas with? Her current bed-mate seems to be in love with a glamorous Hollywood film star (not that Sophia cares, of course: she’s a New Woman); her mad mother is dead. All she has is Felicity.But Felicity is not your average granny. Temperamental, sophisticated, chic (and alarmingly eccentric), she has seen much of life, love and sex and is totally prepared to see more. Even if it is from a twilight home (The Golden Bowl Complex for Creative Retirement)…Twilight is not at all Felicity’s idea of fun; and quite possibly she has more idea of fun than her granddaughter.As the two women’s stories unravel, the past rears up with all its grimness and irony; but points the way to a future that may redeem them both.

A marriage its breakdown and a perforated heroine: one woman, many faces, many personalities and more emerging …..Witty, sexy and funny, Fay Weldon uses a sharp but healing laser to re-lay out notions of love, marriage and the self.A marriage, its breakdown, and a perforated heroine: one woman, many faces, many personalities, and more emerging: a crumbling house, and the rooms of that house (which in our dreams are aspects of the self). Any more trauma and it’s all over!Sir Edwin Rice has decided to divorce Lady Angelica, ex-rock star. She has behaved intolerably. He petitions the Court to set him free. Angelica fights back. She is not what he thinks – but then what woman ever is? Angelica takes a job as secretary to her husband’s divorce solicitor – only to find one false personality leading to another. How is she to find herself: amongst good wife Angelica, Angel the tart, Jelly the secretary, all-male Ajax, Angela the hopeless – and only one body, albeit a beautiful one, to go round between the lot of them?

Brilliant stories from the hyper-real world of Weldonia.Brilliant stories from the hyper-real world of Weldonia, where self-deception rules; where a bully can believe he’s a victim; a blackmailer see herself as a healer; and an artist’s slave be sure she’s free.Travel in space and time: meet Miss Jacobs, the silent psychoanalyst, who receives the confessions of saints and sinners; discover the heart of a nuclear scientist, forcibly retired, who does his hopeless best to resist the wiles of a self-seeking, talking, beautiful New Age journalist – in fact all human life is here, and still in amazingly good heart, considering.

A classic tale of how a perfectly knitted life can unravel in the space of days.Alexandra Ludd is an actress, playing Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. In the eyes of the world she has everything a woman could want: husband, home, child, income; good looks, good friends, the plaudits of the crowd and the affection of neighbours. But Alexandra inspires envy as well as love: she was unwise to forget it: she was complacent, perhaps a little vain – and all fate has to do to bring her down is to snip a single strand…Worst Fears is the story of how bereavement can turn love hollow and truth destroy a past. It is a headlong, headstrong tale of anger and forgiveness, of worst fears realised but, in the end, best wishes granted.

The one and only Fay Weldon tells the story of her turbulent and controversial life.From the 1930s to the 2000s, Fay Weldon has seen and lived our times. As a child in New Zealand, young and poor in London, unmarried mother, wife, lover, playwright, novelist, feminist, anti-feminist, spag-bol-cook, winer-and-diner, there are few waterfronts that she hasn’t covered, few battles she hasn’t fought. An icon to many, a thorn-in-the-flesh to others, she has never failed to excite, madden, or interest. Her life and times cover love, sex, babies, blokes, poverty, work, politics, and not a few Very Famous Names.Moving from New Zealand to London to Scotland, from the UK to points east and west, Weldon has sipped, gulped, and sometimes spat out the things that make us what we are today.Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.

With her inimitable wit and insight, Fay Weldon offers her wisdom on the subject of female happiness and how to achieve it.What makes women happy? Nothing, for more than ten minutes at a time, so stop worrying.In this book, Fay Weldon offers wisdom gleaned from a remarkable life, a brilliantly successful career and a fair share of trouble. She explores what makes women happy; how our lives, jobs, families, bodies, desires, morals and responsibilities affect that happiness, and what we can do to lead more rounded and desirable lives. As she delivers the verdicts, she also delivers short stories, or perhaps parables, to prove her points. To be good, she concludes, is to be happy, to be happy is to be good. The Victorians had it right.A blend of philosophy, storytelling and self-help, this inspirational work shows Weldon at the peak of her creative powers, brisk, stylish and entertaining.