Michele Roberts

Walworth Güzeli

stories of sex and love

After three abruptly ended marriages - hippie husband Tim, stoned one minute and dead the next, fell off a balcony; architectural historian Cecil fell into Venice's Grand Canal (he couldn't swim); tax inspector Hugh fell off a cliff at Land's End - Aurora is ready to lose her dreary black trouser-suit and kick over a few distressing traces. Myths, though, have a way of being subverted by reality for Aurora. It's her new eau de nil frock that she sheds, however, when she finds herself in the hotel room of the disconcertingly magnetic Father Michael. He's wearing yellow paisley socks. He also rides a Harley Davidson, and he may not be a priest at all. Nor may the charming, exquisitely tailored museum director, Frederico Pagan, be quite so thoroughly heterosexually disinclined as Aurora thinks. One thing is certain, Aurora's old friend and erstwhile radical feminist Leonora is now the local convent's abbess, even if Aurora can't imagine what an abbess might want with a gun. What she can image, vividly, by the end of this tale, is exactly what to do with it.

Reader, I Married Him

Describes a secret gospel written by Mary Magdalene who, after the crucifixion of Jesus, preaches a new faith based upon male and female equality, but whose message is rejected by Simon Peter and other disciples, who teach their own gospel.

The Secret Gospel of Mary Magdalene

Rebellion, revolution, experimental living, feminist communes, street theatre, radical magazines, love affairs - gay and straight - sex, drugs and rock and roll. Michèle Roberts, one of Britain's most talented and highly acclaimed novelists, now considers her own life, in this vibrant, powerful portrait of a time and place: alternative London of the 1970s and beyond. A fledgling writer taking a leap into radical politics, Roberts finds alternative homes, new families and lifelong friendships in the streets and houses of Holloway, Peckham, Regent's Park and Notting Hill Gate. From Spare Rib to publishing her first book, Paper Houses is Roberts' story of finding a space in which to live, love and write - and learning to share it. 'Beguiling, enthusiastic, charming and vivid, this is an autobiography to be savoured' Amanda Craig, DAILY TELEGRAPH

A Memoir of the 70s and Beyond

Paper Houses

Adam is a writer, struggling to come to terms with the death of his painter father, Robert, and his difficult marriage to Catherine. Before he married Catherine, he had been the lover of her sister, Vinny. The classic menage à trois seems about to repeat itself, when Adam discovers his wife's father was less innocent than he had thought. Set mainly in contemporary London, partly in France, the action also harks back to the 1970's. The narrative evokes the style of the nineteenth century novelists and their themes: desire, guilt, pleasure. Pastoral landscapes alternate with those of the inner city and the past's interaction with the present is acted out by ghosts. The dead father haunts his son; in real life Vinny haunts her sister; and the whole novel is haunted by one of its great earliest exponents, Charlotte Bronte, and her passionate search for creative fulfilment.

The Mistressclass

The forbidden pleasures and pains of love between father and daughter are unfolded here with the life and death of Saint Josephine. Is she holy woman or whore? Lowly nun or miracle worker? Woven through her story are the tales of other female saints; all women who didn't know their place.

Impossible Saints

Alison Fell

Ann Oosthuizen

Stef Pixner

Tina Reid

First published in 1978, at a time when the brand new word ?sexism? raised hoots of derision, this breakthrough collection mounted a timely and bracing challenge to the white male ownership of the poetic tradition. Produced by a group of feminist writers including Michele Roberts and Alison Fell, ?Licking the Bed Clean? showcases poems that are passionate, perceptive, sometimes hilarious, and crackling with subversive energy, while the original introduction candidly explores questions of art, politics, self-doubt, and the collective process. A breath of fresh air in a Facebook era of branding, marketing and rampant individualism, this collectors' item provides a lasting and invaluable insight into women's struggle to find an authentic voice.

Licking the Bed Clean : five feminist poets

In the parched soil of Provence, a fifth gospel has been discovered, Mary Magdalene's account of Jesus' teaching and her relationship with him. It is a book of revelation, for it unveils a new Christianity, one which embraces the female equally with the male and acknowledges and celebrates women's spirituality. It is also a passionate story of love and search, of separation and rebirth, centred on Mary as the wellspring of womanhood.The Secret Gospel of Mary Magdalene is a brilliant and moving vision that is also startlingly modern in its conclusions.

X24 Dumpbin Daughters of the Hou

Always bold, always provocative, Michele Roberts turns now to the forbidden pleasures and pains of the love between father and daughter and unfolds before us the life and death of Saint Josephine. Holy woman or whore? Upholder of pious or pagan delights? Lowly nun or powerful miracle worker? Or both? And woven throughout her story are the heady and sometimes fearful tales of other female saints - one-armed mad girls, beauties locked in towers, seductive daughters - all women who didn't know their place. Rich with fabulous imagery, IMPOSSIBLE SAINTS is as potent and disturbing as its dangerous themes. 'Her fictions are high-risk, unconventional, often apparently unstable; yet are steered with such authority that the otherwise cautious reader is taken almost without realising it into dangerous and exhilarating territory ... She is a writer dedicated to challenging the boundaries by which the idle and unthinking might try to circumscribe her' Rachel Cusk, Sunday Express 'Hugely entertaining and genuinely thought-provoking' Julia Flynn, Sunday Telegraph

In the early 1800s, Louise, a French peasant woman, fearing she is about to die, calls for her priest. She has a secret to confess. Though the priest is impatient, she wants to tell her tale from the beginning. The story opens in Stoke Newington, London, in the 1780s, with Jemima Boote, arriving at Miss Mary Wollstonecraft's school. Jemima follows her beloved teacher to Paris wanting to be part of the erupting revolution and then - six months pregnant - retreats to the tiny village of Louise's youth. Her arrival coincides with that of another young mother-to-be, Annette, who has been sent by her parents to the country to hide her disgraceful pregnancy and to get over her infatuation with William, a young English poet. In an abandoned convent they take up their waiting: waiting for their babies, waiting for their men. While drawing hints and facts from the lives and secret affairs of two of the most famous and passionate figures of the late 18th century - Mary Wollstonecraft and William Wordworth - the intriguing mystery surrounding these two women, is Michèle Roberts own fascinating creation.

Fair Exchange

Yesterday ended in disaster. Very late at night, I decided to write down everything that had happened; the only way I could think of coping.Following a series of devastating rejections, Michèle Roberts began keeping an account of her life in the hope it might help mend her shattered sense of self. In this intimate and wryly honest journal she reflects on cities and countryside, loss and love, food, friendships, sisterhood, pleasure and memories, her abiding relationship with France and with literature. Over the course of a year a new pattern of being develops, until, finally, she finds a better relationship between inner and outer worlds.

Michele Roberts

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