Kate Atkinson

Kevin P. Smith (Sheffield Hallam University); Revised By: M. Carmen Gomez-Galisteo (Universidad a Distancia)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

Born 1951
Activity 1995-ongoing

Places

Born in England
Active in England; Scotland

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Playwright / Dramatist
Story-writer

Resources

Atkinson's Works

Save to Bookshelf

Kate Atkinson arrived upon the literary scene when her debut novel

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

unexpectedly won the 1995 Whitbread book of the year prize (renamed Costa Award n 2006), beating the favourites, Salman Rushdie's

The Moor's Last Sigh

and Roy Jenkins'

Gladstone

Behind the Scenes at the Museum, one of the dissenting judges of the Whitbread prize commented, is postmodern, “although I don't know if Kate Atkinson knows it”. In fact, Atkinson had previously written a PhD thesis at the University of Dundee on “The post-modern American short story in its historical context”. Although she failed her viva, it is safe to assume that she knows what postmodernism is. The publicity surrounding her Whitbread Prize success brought out the worst in both the literary establishment

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

3325 words

Citation: Smith, Kevin P., M. Carmen Gomez-Galisteo. "Kate Atkinson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 September 2002; last revised 28 May 2019. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5191, accessed 30 April 2024.]

View recommended reading for this article

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here