ABSTRACT
From her first novel onwards, Kate Atkinson has shown an originality and individual style that have marked her out as a significant talent. She writes quirky, tightly plotted novels, peopled with eccentric characters and laced with a darkly comic wit. Kate Atkinson was born in York in 1951. She took a master's degree in English Literature at Dundee University and went on to do further postgraduate work in American literature. Atkinson manages to keep control of all the balls she has thrown into the air, and as the novel reaches its conclusion all the many and varied pieces of the jigsaw, no matter how small and seemingly insignificant, fall neatly and satisfyingly into place. She began to have short stories published in an assortment of magazines in the early 1990s and Behind the Scenes at the Museum, her first novel, was published in 1995.
