One Aladdin Two Lamps: Jeanette Winterson’s Ode to Creativity

Jeanette Winterson, One Aladdin Two Lamps (Penguin Books, 2025)

Jeanette Winterson’s new novel is a bold frenzy of interconnected narratives, embracing the 

power of imagination and of storytelling amid the age of AI

I am not a religious person, but attending Jeanette Winterson’s recent book launch was perhaps the closest I’ve come to a religious experience. Gathering in St George’s Church on a stormy mid-November evening, I felt once again inspired by the narrative genius of Jeanette Winterson and her new novel One Aladdin Two Lamps.

The genre in which she writes defies easy categorisation. What is ostensibly a retelling of the stories that comprise the global classic The Arabian Nights soon expands into narratives that stretch across Winterson’s own life and reflections of the world around us. By utilising this framework of interconnected storytelling, she ultimately speaks to the prevalent need for fiction, for imagination and creativity, in a world increasingly interested in the power of AI. Without denying that it has its uses, Winterson’s message is an ode to a bigger picture, about what relying on algorithms and data models does for our creative thinking. 

As a literature student, I couldn’t help but marvel at the symbolism of the event. Those familiar with Winterson’s work will understand the irony of seeing her enact the role of the preacher in the church. As explored in her infamous 1980 novel Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, alongside her 2011 memoir Why Be Happy When You Can be Normal, Winterson’s childhood was marked by the extreme and, at times, abusive evangelical beliefs of her adoptive parents. In the face of abuse, Winterson has carved a life of prominent literary success and retained a wonderous sense of optimism for the power of storytelling. It was clear from the eloquence with which she spoke that this is someone for whom life has been defined and expanded by all that she has read. As she stood up at the pulpit, like a preacher from her childhood, and spoke of our collective future coexisting with technology, the emanating force of her message arose from the beauty with which she told the story. 

A book launch is a wonderfully random thing. The power of that evening brought to light the very point that Winterson speaks to in her new novel: the community that literature provides. The author was the spark which ignited the undivided attention of one hundred strangers in a church on a rainy Thursday evening. 

Stories are all around us, whether we choose to acknowledge them or not, from the narratives that we are told in our fiction to the narratives that we construct to frame our own lives. It is as important as ever to be able to navigate these constructions of artifice, and to revel in this communal practice. To be involved in a story on either end is to be open to confrontation and communication. Even when you’re reading on your own, you are participating in something wider than yourself, stepping into a world or a body that is not your own. The real danger of these generative data models is not that they will steal our creative skills but that they will steal us from each other. 

With young people turning to AI for mental health support, the real fear that accompanies this acceleration of digital generative power is that it will only encourage us to look further inwards, instead of looking to the world around us. As we burrow our heads down and let ourselves feel wrenched from the steering wheels of our own Silicon Valley tech bros, it is easy to believe that AI is racing ahead beyond our control. But listening to Jeanette Winterson and embracing the interconnecting narratives in her new novel as a reflection of our own wildly imaginative brains was an emboldening thing. The power of the human brain lies in its wild unpredictability. It is our duty to, as Jeanette says, ‘not get lost in the literal', but realise that ‘this is toy town!'.

There is so much joy to be found in our communities and in the act of creation; what a boring reaction it would be to let an algorithm decide it all for us.