One Aladdin Two Lamps

An invitation to change our lives and imagine the world anew through reading stories, in the new book from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit I can change the story because I am the story. 'Makes you think and makes you laugh' Nigella With her execution looming, a woman is fighting for her life. Every night she tells a story. Every morning, she lives one more day. One Aladdin Two Lamps cracks open the legendary story of One Thousand and One Nights to show how its questions are still relevant to our lives today. Is love the most important thing in the world? What makes us happy? In her guise as Aladdin, Jeanette Winterson asks us to reread what we think we know and look again at how fiction works in our lives, giving us the courage to change our own narratives and alter endings we wish to subvert. As a young working-class woman, with no obvious future beyond factory work or marriage, Winterson realised through the power of books that she could read herself as fiction as well as fact. Weaving together fiction, magic and memoir, this remarkable book is a tribute to the age-old tradition of storytelling and a radical step into the future - an invitation to look more closely at our own stories, and to imagine the world anew. 'Enchanting, unexpected and razor-sharp' Kamila Shamsie 'One of the most gifted writers working today' New York Times In her hands, words are fluid, radiant, humming' Evening Standard Review: Enchanting, unexpected and razor-sharp. Jeanette Winterson and Shahrazad are the perfect co-pilots to take us into new worlds on the wings of old stories -- Kamila Shamsie A dazzling blend of fiction, memoir, essay and magical storytelling... One Aladdin Two Lamps is a riveting look at humanity at an existential crossroads * Independent, *Novel of the Month* * One Aladdin Two Lamps is a passionate hymn to the supreme values of human imagination, generosity and love * Times Literary Supplement * A dizzying whirligig of memoir, history, philosophy, politics and self-help, loosely tied to commentary on the [One Thousand and One] Nights... It feels thrillingly direct * Guardian * I just devoured One Aladdin, Two Lamps... A story about storytelling as well as a rousing tract about the power of reading. At its heart, really, it's about what it means to be human. I love the particularity of Winterson's voice: its intensity, its spirited seriousness, playfulness and wit... Makes you think and makes you laugh -- Nigella Lawson It's the confidence of her [Winterson's voice and declarations...that seduces... [Winterson is] always worth reading * Financial Times * Author Biography: Jeanette Winterson CBE was born in Manchester. She published her first novel, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, at twenty-five. Over two decades later she revisited that material in her internationally bestselling memoir Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?. Winterson has written thirteen novels for adults and two previous collections of short stories, as well as children's books, non-fiction and screenplays. She is Professor of New Writing at the University of Manchester. She lives in the Cotswolds in a wood and in Spitalfields, London.