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, 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 Whitbrea

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First published 20 September 2002

Citation: Smith, Kevin P.. "Kate Atkinson". The Literary Encyclopedia. 20 September 2002.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5191, accessed 9 February 2010.]