Jeanette Winterson: ‘I’d like to go up in space as a very old lady and just be pushed out’

‘It’s very difficult to know whether an entity has truly vanished – what does a ghost do when they’re not bothering you?’ … Jeanette Winterson. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer

Your debut novel Oranges are Not the Only Fruit turns 40 years old this year. How do you feel about it at this point in your life?

Can you believe it? I find that astonishing. I’m always having to think about it because people keep bothering me about it! Its next iteration is a musical, and then I really hope that’s the end. Just let me go! Obviously I love Oranges and I revisited it again with [her 2011 memoir] Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? and the musical too. Surely, by the rule of three, this is it? Then I can live in peace and plant potatoes.