Q & A: Kathleen Winter, author of Annabel
Ron Nurwisah November 2, 2010 – 7:00 am
http://arts.nationalpost.com/2010/11/02/q-a-kathleen-winter-author-of-annabel/Author Kathleen Winter's debut novel, Annabel, is the undisputed literary success story of the year. It is currently nominated for the Giller Prize, the Governor-General's Literary Award and the Writer's Trust Prize. The Afterword's Ron Nurwisah spoke to Winter last week. The following is an edited transcript of the Q & A:
The Afterword: We don't have that many inter-sex characters in Canadian literature, or literature at all. Where did this character, Annabel, come from?
Kathleen Winter: I first heard of a child that was born with ambiguous gender and I was captivated by the fact that it's not like being anywhere else in the gender spectrum. It's not like being transgendered because it's nearly always erased at birth and often the child doesn't know about it. It's not a choice the child makes it's physical reality when you're a baby and then it gets taken away. The doctors decide with your parents that you're going to be one way or another. And then you're not told. I was really quite captivated by that the first time I heard about such a child. When I started asking questions, I found out it's really quite common. It's amazingly common and we don't hear about it because it's erased at birth. It still is. It's still considered a disorder. I wanted to look at whether it really is a disorder or whether it's society deciding it's not what we want and erasing it.
