Byatt, A.S.

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Byatt, A.S. ( Antonia Susan) (1936– ) English novelist and critic, sister of Margaret Drabble. Byatt was primarily an academic literary scholar until the publication of her third novel, The Virgin in the Garden (1978). Possession, a literary mystery story and romance spanning two centuries, won the 1990 Booker Prize. She has written studies of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Iris Murdoch. Other work includes the novellas Angels and Insects (1993) and The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye (1994). She received a CBE in 1990.

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