Marina Warner, Anna Della Subin, Adam Thirlwell and Chloe Aridjis traverse the great parallel tradition of the literature of astonishment and wonder, dread and hope, from the 1001 Nights to Ursula K. Le Guin.
Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB.
Texts include:
The Thousand and One Nights
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
The Travels of Marco Polo
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
The stories of Franz Kafka
James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: Written by Himself
Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones
Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet
and works by Angela Carter, J.G. Ballard and Ursula K. Le Guin
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Marina Warner, Anna Della Subin, Adam Thirlwell and Chloe Aridjis traverse the great parallel tradition of the literature of astonishment and wonder, dread and hope, from the 1001 Nights to Ursula K. Le Guin.
Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB.
Texts include:
The Thousand and One Nights
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
The Travels of Marco Polo
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
The stories of Franz Kafka
James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: Written by Himself
Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones
Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet
and works by Angela Carter, J.G. Ballard and Ursula K. Le Guin
Though the last twelve episodes have taken Marina Warner and her interlocutors through many worlds and texts, no series could ever encompass the full scope of fantastic literature. This episode, recorded live at Swedenborg House, is an attempt to fill the gaps, or fail heroically. Marina and Adam Thirlwell are joined by Edwin Frank, editorial director of the New York Review Books and author of ‘Stranger than Fiction: Lives of the Twentieth Century Novel’. Together they assess existing canons and definitions, redefine and rediscover categories and exceptions, and consider the pleasures and uses of the fantastic.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen to the full episode, and all our other Close Readings series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://lrb.me/applecrff
In other podcast apps: https://lrb.me/closereadingsff
Read more in the LRB:
Colin Burrow: Fiction and the Age of Lies
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n04/colin-burrow/fiction-and-the-age-of-lies
Marina Warner on fairytale:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n21/marina-warner/that-which-is-spoken
Jonathan Lethem on Stanisław Lem and Science Fiction:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n03/jonathan-lethem/my-year-of-reading-lemmishly
A.D. Nuttall on the rhetoric of the fantastic:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v04/n21/a.d.-nuttall/really-fantastic
Fiction and the Fantastic
Marina Warner, Anna Della Subin, Adam Thirlwell and Chloe Aridjis traverse the great parallel tradition of the literature of astonishment and wonder, dread and hope, from the 1001 Nights to Ursula K. Le Guin.
Marina Warner is a writer of history, fiction and criticism whose many books include Stranger Magic, Forms of Enchantment and Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale. She was awarded the Holberg Prize in 2015 and is a contributing editor at the LRB.
Texts include:
The Thousand and One Nights
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels
The Travels of Marco Polo
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
The stories of Franz Kafka
James Hogg, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner: Written by Himself
Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones
Leonora Carrington, The Hearing Trumpet
and works by Angela Carter, J.G. Ballard and Ursula K. Le Guin
