Marina Warner is a British author whose work primarily explores feminism and myth. Her non-fiction books delve into the deep roots of mythical narratives and their societal impact. Warner examines contemporary issues through the lens of ancient myths, investigating how these archetypes shape our understanding of the world. Her writing offers a profound insight into timeless human anxieties and desires, as reflected in myths across cultures.
Exploring the concept of sanctuary, this book delves into its significance for individuals facing desperate circumstances today, while also reflecting on historical contexts of refuge and displacement. It intertwines literary and mythological canons, offering a profound examination of how these themes resonate across time and cultures. Through this lens, the narrative reveals the complexities of seeking safety and belonging in a world marked by turmoil.
The Cahiers Series continues its exploration of translation in all its aspects with this account by renowned writer and academic Marine Warner of what happened to time during the Coronavirus pandemic lockdowns. She recounts how strangely her days and weeks passed, in this highly personal account of a response to lockdown in which she delves into her experience of Catholic convent schools for some clues as to how each day might be marked as significant. She discusses missals, almanacs, Roman and Revolutionary calendars, developing her thoughts into what amounts almost to a manifesto for a new way of rendering each day different, memorable, human. Her text is accompanied by a further response to lockdown, by the Greek photographer Dimitris Kleanthis, whose haunting images somehow make visible the suspension and acceleration of time experienced by so many, while also hinting at how, to the eye that is acute enough, there may always be an event taking place.
Fun activities for pre-school kids to keep them entertained whilst building key early years skills
"Esmond and Ilia follows Marina Warner's beautiful, penniless young mother Ilia as she leaves southern Italy in 1945 to travel alone to London. Her husband, an English colonel, is still away in the war in the East as she begins to learn how to be Mrs. Esmond Warner, an Englishwoman. With diamond rings on her fingers and brogues on her feet, Ilia steps fearlessly into the world of cricket and riding. But, without prospect of work in a bleak, war-ravaged England, Esmond remembers the glorious ease of Cairo during his periods of leave from the desert campaign. There, they start a bookshop, a branch of W. H. Smith's. But growing resistance to foreign interests, especially British, erupts in the 1952 uprising, and the Cairo Fire burns the city clean. Evocative and imaginative, at once historical and speculative, this memoir powerfully resurrects the fraught union and unrequited hopes of Warner's parents. Memory intertwines richly with myth, the river Lethe feeling as real as the Nile. Vivid recollections of Cairo swirl with ever-present dreams of a city where Warner's parents, friends, and associates are still restlessly wandering"-- Provided by publisher
A luminous memoir of post-war childhood, adventure and loss on the banks of the Nile. 'Wonderful - a brave, inventive, touching distillation of memory and imagination' JENNY UGLOW
A luminous memoir of post-war childhood, adventure and loss on the banks of the Nile.'Wonderful - a brave, inventive, touching distillation of memory and imagination' JENNY UGLOW
Late in the seventeenth century, Robert Kirk, an Episcopalian minister in the Scottish Highlands, set out to collect his parishioners' many striking stories about elves, fairies, fauns, doppelgängers, wraiths, and other beings of, in Kirk's words, "a middle nature betwixt man and angel." For Kirk these stories constituted strong evidence for the reality of a supernatural world, existing parallel to ours, which, he passionately believed, demanded exploration as much as the New World across the seas. Kirk defended these views in The Secret Commonwealth, an essay that was left in manuscript when he died in 1692. It is a rare and fascinating work, an extraordinary amalgam of science, religion, and folklore, suffused with the spirit of active curiosity and bemused wonder that fills Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy and the works of Sir Thomas Browne. The Secret Commonwealth is not only a remarkable document in the history of ideas but a study of enchantment that enchants in its own right. First published in 1815 by Sir Walter Scott, then reedited in 1893 by Andrew Lang, with a dedication to Robert Louis Stevenson, The Secret Commonwealth has long been difficult to obtain-available, if at all, only in scholarly editions. This new edition modernizes the spelling and punctuation of Kirk's little book and features a wide-ranging and illuminating introduction by the critic and historian Marina Warner, who brings out the originality of Kirk's contribution and reflects on the ongoing life of fairies in the modern mind
Review from previous edition the book is an enchanted material object, and reading a journey toward knowledge and wisdom. Gramayre
A series of enlightening perspectives on the art and visual culture of today's world from one of our pre-eminent writers.
Long-listed for the 2016 Edge Hill Short Story PrizeFly Away Home is Marina Warner's third - and eagerly-awaited - collection of short stories. Inspired by fairy tales, legends, and mythology, this timeless selection explores the themes of love and war - in families, and between generations.In 'Mélusine' a gorgeous mermaid encounters disaster in love and visits her aunt, Morgan le Fay, to pour out her woes ; in 'Breadcrumbs' a hospital patient overhears a night nurse recounting an extraordinary tale of family torn apart under terrifying circumstances. 'Out of the Burning House' introduces an elderly actor recalling an unusual case of heartbreak at the hands of a TV personality; in 'The Difference in the Dose' a young mother becomes increasingly anxious about the rift between herself and her adoptive mother. And in 'Letter to an Unknown Soldier' a thirteen year-old girl writes a heartrending second letter to an older brother away at war, having had no reply to her first...Like her award-winning novels, Marina Warner's stories conjure up mysteries and wonders in a physical world, treading a delicate, magical line between the natural and the supernatural, between openness and fear. An elegant mix of the poignant, the caustic, and the bizarre, Fly Away Home will be treasured by fans and new readers alike.
