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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Jenny Colgan

Fay Weldon: the fearless glass ceiling cracker who loved being outrageous

‘Anyone can start a literary career. Getting it to carry on is the tricky bit’ … Fay Weldon.
‘Anyone can start a literary career. Getting it to carry on is the tricky bit’ … Fay Weldon. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

I have worked with a lot of writers on the festival circuit, most of them delightful – but I have never seen such an adoring literary audience as I did when I was on stage with Fay Weldon.

These were second-generation feminists, working mothers, divorcees, and they absolutely loved her for pouring her rage and impish sense of fun into her books – not just The Life and Loves of a She Devil but The Hearts and Lives of Men, Down Among the Women and more. She was prolific, which she always complained meant nobody took her seriously (although Praxis was shortlisted for the Booker prize).

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