Bayett Antoniya Syuzen

Antonia Byatt (maiden name Drabble) is an English writer, literary scholar, and critic.

She was born on August 24, 1936, in Sheffield. The writer Margaret Drabble is her younger sister. In 1957, Byatt graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge University, with a Bachelor of Arts degree. At Bryn Mawr College (USA, Pennsylvania, 1957–1958) and Somerville College, Oxford University (1958–1959), she worked on a doctoral dissertation devoted to 17th-century English literature. Until 1972, she lectured at the University of London and the Central School of Arts and Crafts (London), after which she became a full-time lecturer at University College London. Since 1983, she has devoted herself entirely to literary work.

The writer has published a number of literary studies (books on the poets of the Lake School and on the work of Iris Murdoch) and regularly reviews new books in the British press. Among A. Byatt’s works of fiction are novels (“The Shadow of the Sun,” “The Virgin in the Garden,” “The Game,” “The Biographer’s Tale,” etc.), novellas (“Angels and Insects”), and collections of short stories and tales (“Sugar,” “Matisse Stories,” “Elementals,” etc.). Although most of these works are set in England, her creative manner clearly shows a desire to expand the range of artistic devices characteristic of English literature and thereby overcome the “island insularity” that, in Byatt’s view, is typical of British writers of her generation. As a result, Byatt’s books combine seemingly incompatible elements: a reverent attitude toward the English literary tradition with bold innovation, sincerity of feeling with intellectual play, and historical authenticity with fiction.