Angela Carter

Angela Carter, born Angela Olive Stalker in 1940, was an English novelist, journalist, short fiction author, and poet. She was known for her picaresque, magical realist, and feminist works. Born in Eastbourne, Carter was evacuated as a child to live in Yorkshire with her maternal grandmother. As a teenager, she battled anorexia. She began her career as a journalist on the Croydon Advertiser, following in the footsteps of her father. Carter attended the University of Bristol where she studied English literature. She married twice, first in 1960 to Paul Carter, and then in 1977 to Mark Pearce, with whom she had one son.

Carter's writing career took off in the 1960s, with the publication of her first novel, Shadow Dance, in 1965. She gained critical acclaim and popularity with the novel "The Bloody Chamber." In 1969, after winning the Somerset Maugham Award, Carter relocated to Japan, a move that she claimed radicalized her and made her realize what it meant to be a woman. She wrote about her experiences in Japan in the novel "Nothing Sacred" and in the collection of short stories "Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces." Carter was also a prolific writer of fiction and contributed many articles to various newspapers and magazines. She was actively involved in adapting her works for film and radio, with two of her fictions adapted for the silver screen: "The Company of Wolves" and "The Magic Toyshop."

Carter spent much of the 1970s and 1980s as a writer in residence at various universities, including the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. She was fluent in German and French, which allowed her to explore the United States, Asia, and Europe. Her writing was controversial and bold, and she was known for her feminist and radical views. Carter's work was widely recognized and she won several awards for her writing, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature for her novel "Nights at the Circus." Carter died in 1992 at the age of 51 after a battle with lung cancer. Her obituary in The Observer described her as "the opposite of parochial" and someone who "wanted to know about everything and everyone, and every place and every word."