Jeanette Winterson & Anna Guitart, Ghostly Intelligence

Jeanette Winterson, one of the most stunning creators in British literature today, talks with journalist Anna Guitart about ghost stories, to go back to the universal topic of love, and to question how technology affects our humanity.

Jeanette Winterson, Author of novels, short stories, and essays.

She was raised in a Pentecostal Christian family and published her first book when she was 24. This semi-autobiographical debut novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (published in Spanish as Fruta Prohibida, Lumen, 2017), relates the difficulties faced by a lesbian girl who rebels against the conventional values of her community. Winterson became known with this first novel which, adapted for television by the BBC, was a resounding success in the United Kingdom. Ever since, she has been considered one of the most imaginative writers in present-day English literature and, moreover, her work has received the Whitbread Prize (1985), a BAFTA award (1992), the St. Louis Literary Award (2014), two Lambda Literary Awards (1994 and 2014), and she was also named Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2018.

Her extensive, wide-ranging work, translated into Spanish and Catalan by Lumen and Periscopi, invites readers to join her in shining light on the complex corners of human experience, while also affirming the power of art to make sense of things. Notable among these works are The Passion, 1987 (in Catalan La passió, 2015); her autobiography, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, 2011 (in Catalan, Per què ser feliç quan podries ser normal?, 2020); and Frankissstein: A Love Story, 2019 (in Catalan Frankisstein), a book with which she presents her interest in the relationship between technological developments and the human condition. This task of immersion in contemporary scientific debates then took essay form in her most recent book 12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next, 2021 (in Spanish, 12 bytes, Lumen, 2022). Jeanette Winterson also teaches Creative Writing at the University of Manchester.

Anna Guitart, Journalist and scriptwriter for radio and television

A scriptwriter and journalist specialising in literature and books, she started working at Ràdio Barcelona and then in Joan Barril’s programme La República at COM Ràdio, as well as being a member of Carles Bosch’s documentary team for Setembres. She has worked as a scriptwriter in several programmes including De què va (Canal 33), El bocamoll (TV3), and Via Llibre (Canal 33), and was director of the second season of the programme Savis (Canal 33). In 2015 she started presenting the books section of the programme Tria33 (Canal 33). Since 2017 she presents and directs the programme of literary interviews Tot el temps del món (Canal 33). She is currently an editorial advisor for the magazine El món d’ahir, and a contributor to El matí de Catalunya Ràdio, Tot es mou (TV3) and Llegim, the literary supplement of the newspaper Ara.