Fay Weldon — novelist and writer 1931–20??

Note: Fay wrote this as the main Home page content for the original version of this site, in which form it was published on 11th January 2012.

(It is interesting to speculate as to how and when and why the two question marks above will eventually be filled in. Believe me, I do speculate, quite a lot.)

Greetings

Hello to you who now open this site. Probably you read this as a student, having to write a dissertation. In which case this is the official view of me, via my agent, and useful for quoting.

‘Weldon’s novels and stories serve as dispatches from that ever-changing marital front – the war between the sexes. She takes no sides, but has a clear vision of the wounds inflicted, as well as courage shown, and the exhilaration of occasional victory. The least didactic of contemporary chroniclers, she is one of the few authors whose every new novel or story is endlessly discussed and argued over.’

There are of course other views but this will do.

You need to know: that she has been writing fiction assiduously for five decades. That she has written 34 novels, numerous TV dramas, several radio plays, 5 full length stage plays, quite a few short ones, five collections of short stories, had four children, looked after four step children, been married three times, innumerable articles, demonstrated essential respectability by being given a CBE, is big in Denmark and at the time of writing works as Professor teaching creative writing at Bath Spa University. She turns up on TV and radio quite a lot, even at her advanced age, presenting herself as a pleasant, practical, well informed person – not the delinquent she once was.

Or else you have arrived at this site as a journalist after looking at Wikipedia, in which case this one at least comes from a (fairly) reliable source. My Autobiography (Auto Da Fay, Harper Collins, 2002) will give you a detailed account of my early life.

Or perhaps you are a ‘real’ reader, who wants to know more about the person who wrote the book you have just read (though to my mind it is irrelevant: a book needs to be judged without reference to its writer) or indeed, wanting to have info about her back list, mostly available for 1p plus postage on Amazon, though you can spend more.

I write this as I enter my ninth decade, and being as one is on the brink of turning into history, turns herself into the third person from time to time. One feels entitled to look at oneself dispassionately, or as fictional character oneself.

She was once told by a psychoanalyst that to speak of ‘one’ was an evasion: ‘one’ is used as an excuse for following the herd; ‘one’ should be assiduous in examining ‘one’s’ own motives if finding ‘oneself’ using it. Okay, I find myself entitled to look at myself dispassionately.