Introducing ‘Fiction and the Fantastic’

Marina Warner is joined by Anna Della Subin to introduce Fiction and the Fantastic, a new Close Readings series running through 2025. Marina describes the scope of the series, in which she will also be joined by Adam Thirlwell and Chloe Aridjis. Together, Anna Della and Marina discuss the ways the fiction of wonder and astonishment can challenge social conventions and open up new ways of living.

The first episode will come out on Monday 13 January, on The Thousand and One Nights.

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.

Anna Della Subin’s study of men who unwittingly became deities, Accidental Gods, was published in 2022. She has been writing for the LRB since 2014.

Texts for the first four episodes:

The Thousand and One Nights (Yasmine Seale’s translation)

Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

The Travels of Marco Polo (no particular translation) and Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (William Weaver translation)

Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass

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