Fay Weldon

Fay Weldon – Life, Career, and Memorable Quotes

Discover the bold voice of Fay Weldon (1931–2023), the English novelist, essayist, and playwright whose wit, moral insight, and feminist edge made her a provocative and beloved literary figure.

Introduction

Fay Weldon (born Franklin Birkinshaw, 22 September 1931 – 4 January 2023) was a prolific English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and essayist.

Over a career spanning more than five decades, she published over 30 novels, in addition to numerous plays, television and radio scripts, essays, and memoirs.

She is perhaps best known for The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983), a novel that subverted conventional notions of beauty, revenge, and marriage.

In the following, we trace Weldon’s life, her literary journey, major themes, personality, and offer a selection of her pithiest quotations.

Early Life and Family

Fay Weldon was born Franklin Birkinshaw in Alvechurch, Worcestershire, England on 22 September 1931.

Her parents were part of a literary milieu: her mother, Margaret Jepson, wrote novels under the pseudonym Pearl Bellairs, and her maternal grandfather and uncle (Edgar Jepson, Selwyn Jepson) were also writers.

Though born in England, Weldon spent part of her early years in New Zealand, where her father, Frank Thornton Birkinshaw, worked as a doctor.

When she was five, her parents separated; later, her mother and sister moved back to England, and Weldon did not see her father again before his death.

Her schooling included time at Christchurch Girls’ High School in New Zealand, followed by South Hampstead High School in London, after the family’s return.

She then studied Psychology and Economics at the University of St Andrews, completing her M.A. in 1952.

Weldon later described her younger self as “large, blonde and big-boned,” growing up in a family of more traditionally “pretty” women—an experience that shaped her empathy toward “ordinary” women in her fiction.

Career & Literary Journey

Early Career & Scriptwriting

Weldon’s writing career began in radio and television in the early 1960s. first episode of Upstairs, Downstairs (1971), for which she won a Writers Guild award.

She also dramatized classic works, such as Pride and Prejudice for the BBC in 1980.

Novels & Major Works

Her first novel, The Fat Woman’s Joke, was published in 1967.

Some of her notable works include:

• Praxis (1978), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

• Puffball (1980), a novel blending supernatural and feminist themes.

• The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983), arguably her signature work, in which an “ugly” woman turns the tables on her unfaithful husband in radical ways.

• Wicked Women (short stories, 1995) and The Bulgari Connection (2000) among others.

• In later years, she also published trilogies like Love and Inheritance (2012–2013) and Spoils of War (2017–2018).

Weldon also produced nonfiction: her memoir Auto da Fay (2002), What Makes Women Happy (2006), and occasional essays on literature and society.

Beyond novels, she continued writing plays, radio dramas, and television scripts throughout her life.

Themes & Style

Weldon’s writing is characterized by wit, irony, moral audacity, and a deep concern with women’s identity, body, agency, and social constraint.

She frequently featured heroines who are not conventionally beautiful—overweight, plain, or otherwise marginalized—and challenged the cultural expectations placed upon women.

Her feminist stance is often outspoken, though sometimes controversial. In interviews and essays, she critiqued both sexism and what she saw as the constraints of modern feminist orthodoxies.

Plot structures in her novels often include dark humor, unexpected reversals, and forms of revenge or transformation. Her style mixes social realism with imaginative provocation.

Weldon embraced the role of observer: she once said her books were not criticisms but “observations” of women’s lives.

Later Years & Recognition

In 2001, she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to literature.

From 2006, she held a Chair in Creative Writing at Brunel University, and later at Bath Spa University.

Although her original birth date was given as 1931, she passed away on 4 January 2023 in Northampton, aged 91.

Personality & Views

Weldon sometimes courted controversy for her provocative remarks—e.g. in 1998, she commented publicly that rape “isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a woman” if she emerges physically unmarked, which drew strong backlash.

Later in life, she described herself as having converted to Christianity, being confirmed in the Church of England at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Her domestic life was often unconventional: she had four sons by various relationships and marriages.

She didn’t shy away from self-reflection. Her memoir Auto da Fay is frank about her early life up to the age of 35 (she said she “stopped living and started writing” then).

Selected Quotes

Here are some of Fay Weldon’s more striking, witty, or provocative quotations:

• “If you do nothing unexpected, nothing unexpected happens.”

• “Food. Drink. Sleep. Books. They are all drugs.”

• “Worry less about what other people think about you, and more about what you think about them.”

• “Guilt to motherhood is like grapes to wine.”

• “Nothing happens, and nothing happens, and then everything happens.”

• “It is easier for the reader to judge, by a thousand times, than for the writer to invent.”

• “A woman’s body works as if it knew something she didn’t …”

These lines capture her mix of irony, insight into human nature, and focus on the complexities of women’s experience.

Lessons & Reflections

1. Write the “unseen” woman. Weldon gave voice to women often ignored by mainstream fiction—those not fitting ideal molds—but struggling with real inner lives.

2. Shock as method. Her provocations force readers to reconsider taboos, norms, and blind spots about gender, power, and identity.

3. Observation, not sermonizing. Even when tackling social issues, Weldon often contrasted her moral voice with a refusal to preach, preferring satire, ambiguity, and irony.

4. Life shaping literature. Her own life—marriages, motherhood, public controversy—fed the raw material of her novels, making them both personal and universal.

Conclusion

Fay Weldon remains a distinctive and provocative voice in late 20th- and early 21st-century English letters. Her relentless critical eye, empathy for “ordinary women,” and fearless embrace of literary audacity make her a writer worth revisiting.

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