Byatt, A S

Byatt, A(ntonia) S(usan)

 orig. Antonia Susan Drabble

(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.