Angela Carter facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Angela Carter
Born	Angela Olive Stalker (1940-05-07)7 May 1940 Eastbourne, England
Died	16 February 1992(1992-02-16) (aged 51) London, England
Occupation	Novelist, short story writer, poet, journalist
Alma mater	University of Bristol
Spouse	Paul Carter ​ ​ (m. 1960; div. 1972)​ Mark Pearce ​ ​ (m. 1977)​
Children	1

Angela Olive Pearce (born Stalker, and known as Angela Carter) was an English writer. She was born on May 7, 1940, and passed away on February 16, 1992. Angela Carter was famous for her novels, short stories, poems, and journalism. Her writing often included ideas about women's rights, magical realism (where magic blends with real life), and adventure stories.

Her most well-known book is The Bloody Chamber, published in 1979. In 2008, The Times newspaper listed her as one of the top 50 British writers since 1945. Her book Nights at the Circus was chosen as the best winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2012.

Biography

Early Life and Education

Angela Olive Stalker was born in Eastbourne, England, in 1940. Her mother, Sophia Olive, worked as a cashier. Her father, Hugh Alexander Stalker, was a journalist. When she was a child, Angela went to live with her grandmother in Yorkshire because of World War II.

She later attended Streatham and Clapham High School in London. After school, she started working as a journalist for The Croydon Advertiser, just like her father. Angela then went to the University of Bristol to study English literature.

Travels and Writing

Angela Carter married Paul Carter in 1960. They divorced in 1972. In 1969, she used money from an award to move to Tokyo, Japan, for two years. She wrote about her time in Japan in articles for New Society. She also included her experiences in a collection of short stories called Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974). You can also see her time in Japan reflected in her novel The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972).

After Japan, she traveled a lot. She explored the United States, Asia, and Europe. She was good at French and German, which helped her travels. In the late 1970s and 1980s, she worked as a writer-in-residence at several universities. These included the University of Sheffield, Brown University, the University of Adelaide, and the University of East Anglia. This meant she lived at the university and helped students with their writing.

In 1977, Angela met Mark Pearce. They had a son together and married shortly before her death. Angela Carter was a very independent thinker. She explored ideas about desire and how women sometimes felt trapped in their roles.

Journalism and Adaptations

Besides writing many fictional stories, Angela Carter also wrote many articles for newspapers. These included The Guardian, The Independent, and New Statesman. Many of these articles were later collected in a book called Shaking a Leg.

She also adapted some of her short stories for radio. She wrote two original radio plays. Two of her stories were even made into movies: The Company of Wolves (1984) and The Magic Toyshop (1967). She helped write the screenplays for both films. Her screenplays and radio scripts are published in a book called The Curious Room.

Her novel Nights at the Circus won the 1984 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for literature. Her last novel, Wise Children, is a wild and imaginative story about British theater and music hall traditions.

Later Life and Legacy

Angela Carter passed away in 1992 at her home in London. She was 51 years old and had lung cancer. At the time of her death, she was working on a sequel to Charlotte Brontë's famous novel Jane Eyre. She had only written a summary of the story.

Works

Novels

• Shadow Dance (1966, also known as Honeybuzzard)
• The Magic Toyshop (1967)
• Several Perceptions (1968)
• Heroes and Villains (1969)
• Love (1971)
• The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (1972, also known as The War of Dreams)
• The Passion of New Eve (1977)
• Nights at the Circus (1984)
• Wise Children (1991)

Short Story Collections

• Fireworks: Nine Profane Pieces (1974)
• The Bloody Chamber (1979)
• Black Venus (1985)
• American Ghosts and Old World Wonders (1993)
• Burning Your Boats (1995)

Children's Books

• The Donkey Prince (1970)
• Miss Z, the Dark Young Lady (1970)
• Comic and Curious Cats (1979)
• Moonshadow (1982)
• Sea-Cat and Dragon King (2000)

Dramatic Works

• Come Unto These Yellow Sands: Four Radio Plays (1985)
• The Curious Room: Plays, Film Scripts and an Opera (1996)

Commemoration

• In September 2019, English Heritage placed a blue plaque at Angela Carter's last home. This was at 107, The Chase in Clapham, South London. She wrote many of her books there. She also tutored the young writer Kazuo Ishiguro at this address.
• In 2008, the British Library bought the Angela Carter Papers. This is a large collection of her writings, letters, diaries, photos, and audio recordings.
• A street in Brixton is named after her: Angela Carter Close.

See also

In Spanish: Angela Carter para niños