Michèle Roberts was born in 1949 of a French Catholic mother and an English Protestant father. Much of her work has touched upon the conflicting identities produced by such mixed parentage; her first novel,

A Piece of the Night

(1978) is a semi-autobiographical investigation of Anglo-French identity which won the Gay News Literary Award. In an autobiographical piece for the collection

Walking on the Water: Women Talk About Spirituality

, edited by Jo Garcia and Sara Maitland (1983), Roberts gives the following account of her early life:

I was born in May 1949, twenty minutes after my twin sister Marguerite. I have an older sister, Jacqueline, and a younger brother, Andrew. My mother is French, and a devout Catholic in the French way: unsentimental, unawed by priestly authority, full

2089 words

Citation: White, Rosemary. "Michèle Roberts". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 June 2003 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5135, accessed 19 March 2024.]

5135 Michèle Roberts 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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

Leave Feedback

The Literary Encyclopedia is a living community of scholars. We welcome comments which will help us improve.