Born London, 1946. Italian mother; English father,bookseller.
Educated: Primary Schooling, Gezira, Cairo, Egypt;Les Dames de Marie, Uccle, Brussels l953-9; St Mary’s Convent, Ascot, Berkshire,UK, l959 –63; Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, l964-67: MA Modern Languages(French and Italian -Distinction in French Oral), 1968.
Professor, Dept. of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies, University of Essex (2004- )
CBE, 2008
Honorary Fellow, London Institute of Pataphysics,2007
Commendatore dell’ Ordine della Stella diSolidareità, 2005
She was awarded CBE for services to literature in 2005.
Fellow of the British Academy , 2005
Aby Warburg Prize, 2004
Vice-President, Institute of Greece , Rome and Classical Studies, University of Bristol 2004
Rose Mary Crawshay Prize, British Academy, 2000
Honorary Fellow, Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, 2000
Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres,2000
Katharine Briggs Memorial Prize, 1999
Mythopoeic Scholarship Award 1996
Harvey Darton Prize, 1996
Commonwealth Writer’s Prize ( Eurasia ), 1989
PEN Silver Pen Award, 1988
Booker Prize Short List, 1988
Fawcett Prize, 1986
Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature,1985
Young Writer of the Year (Daily TelegraphAward),1971.
Runner Up: W.H. Smith Children’s Poetry Prize,1964.
Hon D. Litt University of Oxford, 2006
Hon D.Litt University of Leicester, 2006
Hon.Doc. Royal College of Art, 2004
Hon. Doc, University of Kent, 2005
Hon D. Litt., University of St Andrew ’s, 1998
Hon. Doc., Tavistock Institute (University of East London), 1999
Hon D. Litt., University of St Andrew’s, 1998
Hon D.Litt., University of York, 1997
Hon. Doc., University of North London,1997
Hon D.Litt., University of York, 1997
Hon. Doc., University of North London, 1997
Hon. Doc., Sheffield Hallam University, 1995
Hon. D. Litt., University of Exeter, 1995
Honorary Fellow, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, 1994
Heidelberg University in lecture series ‘The Power of Things’: ‘Talismans and Toys in the 1001 Nights’, October 29 2009
Von Siemens Foundation Lecture, Munich: ‘Flights of Fancy and the 1001 Nights, October 27 2009
BIRTHA lecture, Bristol: ‘Present Enchantments: Magic after the Arabian Nights’, October 19 2009
Jane Harrison Memorial Lecture, Cambridge, May 2008
Presidential Lecture, Stanford, 14 April 2008
Hussey Lecture, Oxford: ‘Wise Men from the East: The Knowledge of Strangers’, 2008
Getty Museum Lecture on ‘Beasts’, for exhibition of medieval manuscripts, July 22 2007
Beatrice Blackwood Lecture, Oxford, May 23 2007
‘What is Enchantment?’ Heyman Center for the Humanities, Columbia University, Conference, January 2006.
Alan Marre Maccabaeus Lecture, University College London, 2005: ‘Stranger Magic: The Psychic Geography of Darkness’
Carpenter Lecturer, Institute of the Visual Arts,Harvard University, 2003
The Perrot-Warrick Lecture at Trinity, 1998
John Coffin Lecture, University of London, 1997
Marina Warner has given many other lectures and seminars and participated in conferences in the UK, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Australia and the United States, inuniversities and institutes including, for example, the Getty Museum, the National Gallery London, Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow, and St Andrew’s. Lectured for the British Council, in Japan, the University of the WestIndies (Jamaica, Barbados, St Lucia), Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, and the Ukraine. Readings, panel discussions,and debates at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, The Purcell Room, London, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Edinburgh Books Festival, et al.
The Symbol Gives Rise to Thought (Collected essays on art), forthcoming Violette Editions 2008
Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media, Oxford University Press, 2006.
Signs &Wonders: Essays in Literature and Culture (Chatto & Windus,2003)
Fantastic Metamorphoses, Other Worlds: Ways of Telling the Self (Clarendon Lectures), Oxford , 2002
No Go the Bogeyman: On Scaring, Lulling and Making Mock.1998.
From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales andtheir Tellers. 1994.
Managing Monsters: Six Myths of Our Time. The 1994 Reith Lectures (London, 1994) (US title: Six Myths of Our Time, New York, l995)
L’Atalante. 1994
Into the Dangerous World. Some reflections on childhood and its costs. 1988.
Monuments & Maidens The allegory of the female form. 1985.
Joan of Arc: The image of female heroism, London, 1981.
Alone of All Her Sex The myth and the cult of the Virgin Mary. 1976
The Dragon Empress The life and times of Tz’u-hsi, Empress Dowager of China, 1835-1980. 1972
‘A Family Friend’, short story for series Alan Howard Reads, Radio 4, 2008. With introduction, International Literary Quarterly, Issue No. 4, August 2008.
’Mother Rat’ (memoir), in ‘Grandparents: A Celebration’ edited by Sarah Brown and Gil McNeil, Ebury Press ‘Mélusine’, a short story translated into French (first publication), in Marie- Claude de Brunhoff, Theatres Immobiles, ed. René de Ceccatty (Paris, Seuil, 2008)
‘Lord of the Dance; Five Pieces for Ram Gopal’.
Two tales for Barbara Campbell.
‘Forget My Fate’, in Midsummer Nights, ed.Jeanette Winterson (stories after opera for Glyndebourne)’.
Cristina’s Cell’, first broadcast Radio 4,in series I Want to Be Alone, appearing in Italian, 2009.
International Literary Quarterly, No.4,http://www.interlitq.org/ ‘Melusine’, short story in Marie-Claudede Brunhoff, Theatres Immobiles (Paris: Seuil, 2008)
‘After the Fo’, in Don’t Know a Good Thing: the Asham Award Collection, ed. Kate Pullinger (Bloomsbury, 2006).
‘Ladybird, Ladybird’, published Harpers, December 2005.
‘Out of the Burning House’, broadcast Radio 4, 2004.
‘My first communion’, in Rites of Passage, ed. Kate Reardon, supplement for PEN, Vanity Fair, August 2006.
‘Spirits before my face’, in Caribbean Despatches:Stories of Change and Movement, ed. Jane Bryce, London: Macmillan Palgrave, 2006.
‘Old Hags’, in City of Disappearances, ed. Iain Sinclair, 2006.
‘Cancellanda’, Raritan III, Number 2, Fall 2003; Wasafiri, 2004. (Reprinted in Italian as small volume, trans. Marcella Romeo Lovison (Palermo: Quattrosoli, 2004).
‘Worm Wrangler’, Heat (Sydney, 2003).
‘Rapture’, Otherworlds: Nancy Spero and Kiki Smith, ed. Jon Bird (London: Reaktion Books, 2003).
‘After the Fo’,in Asham Short Stories, ed. Kate Pullinger, forthcoming, 2005.
‘Birgitta’s Cell’, BBC Radio 4,2005.
‘Baba Yaga Laid an Egg’ by Dubravka Ugresic, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac, Celia Hawkesworth and Mark Thompson. London Review of Books,Volume 31 Number 16, 27 August 2009. Pages 23-24
The Guardian Review Arts, Saturday Guardian 04 July 2009. ‘Heart of Stone’ On Peter Randall-Pages ‘exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park,Wakefield until Jan 2010. Page 18
‘Who Can Shave An Egg?: Foreign Tongues and Primal Sounds in Mallarmeand Beckett. ‘Reflections on Beckett -A Centenary Celebration’
Anna McMullan and S.E Wilmer, Editors Foreword by Dennis Kennedy. TheUniversity of Michigan Press / Ann Arbor 2009. Pages 53-81
‘Remote Viewing’ by Susan MacWilliam. Extracts from Phantasmagoria byMarina Warner. Black Dog Publishing London 2009. Pages 56-57
‘All’s Well That Ends Well by William Shakespeare’ - ‘Once Upon A Time In Rossillion’ by Marina Warner. May 2009 National Theatre Programme
Garsington Opera Programme 2009
‘Other Cinderella’s by Marina Warner Pages 54-56
Glyndebourne Opera Programme 2009
Rusalka ‘The Silence of The Siren’ by Marina Warner, Pages 92-97 an extract from The Beast to The Blonde (Vintage)
‘Wham!’ Aaargh! Boo! Oooh! Is there a natural value to certain noises?’ Forthcoming in Soundtrack, October 2007 and in proceedings of conference [http://www.schoolofsound.co.uk/], London 2009
‘Who Can Shave an Egg? From speech to silence in Mallarmé and Beckett’ [from lecture in April 2006 at the close of the Beckett Centenary Festival in Dublin], Michigan University Press, 2008.
‘Schaulager Museum , Basel , 2007
‘Darkness Visible: The view from the shadows’ [extracts from Phantasmagoria], Cabinet , March 2007
‘Maya Deren: Dancing the White Darkness’, Tate Etc Magazine, Spring 2007
‘Wolf-Girl, Soul-Bird: The Mortal Art of Kiki Smith’, in Kiki Smith, exhibition catalogue for retrospective, Minneapolis - San Francisco, New York, 2005 - 7.
Introduction, Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns andFairies, New York Review Books, forthcoming.2006
Introduction, Charles Lamb, Lamb’s Tales, Penguin Classic,forthcoming 2006.
‘Singing Each to Each’, Introduction to David Parker, Sirens,Gottingen : Steidl, 2006
‘Light Drawing In: The Art of Tacita Dean’[proceedings of conference, ‘Walking’, Summer 2006],
Introduction, Charles and Mary Lamb, Tales from Shakespeare, London: Penguin Classic, 2006.
‘Ghosts and Daemons: The Revival of Myth and Magic’, PresidentialAddress, Virgil Society, Proceedings, 2006.
‘Airy Spirits and Spitting Images: Adventures with Ectoplasm’,Vorträge aus dem Warburg-Haus, Vol. 9, Hamburg, 2006
Introduction, Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies. New York : New York Review Books, 2006
‘Hieronymus Bosch: The Hay Wain’, El Boscoy la tradicion pictorica delo fantastico en el Museo del Prado, Madrid: Museo del Prado, 2006.
’The Word Unfleshed: Memory in Cyberspace’, Raritan, Spring 2006
‘Invented Plots: The Enchanted Puppets and Fairy Doubles of Henry Fuseli’, in Gothic Nightmares: Fuseli, Blake and the Romantic Imagination, eh. cat. ,Tate Britain, London, February 15-1 May 2006
Interview with Tacita Dean, in Tacita Dean (Phaidon, 2006)
‘Angels & Engines: Apocalypse and its Aftermath from George W Bushto Philip Pullman’, TLS Aug. 19 and 26 2005;
different version published as ‘The Cultureof Apocalypse’, Raritan,Fall 2005 Vol V, No. 2.
‘Knowing your Daemons: Metamorphosis from The Arabian Nights to Philip Pullman’, in Children’s Literature Global and Local: Social and Aesthetic Perspectives, eds. Emer O’Sullivan, Kimberley Reynolds, Rolf Romoren (Oslo,2005)
‘Out of the Hell-Broth on to the Pillow: The Metamorphosis of a Frog’,in Kiss the Frog: The Art of Transformation eh. cat., Nasjonal Museet for Kunst, arkitektur og design, Oslo 28 May- 18 Sept 2005.
‘Passionate Cruces: The Art of Dorothy Cross’ in Dorothy Cross, exhibition catalogue, Irish Museum of Modern Art. Dublin, 2005 (Milan; Charta, 2005)
‘Self-Portrait in a Rear-View Mirror’ in Only Make Believe: Ways ofPlaying, catalogue of ehibition at Compton Verney,2004-5.
‘Insubstantial Pageants: spirit visions, soul traces’, in The Blur ofthe Otherworldly, ed. Mark Alice Durrant, ehibition catalogue, Baltimore, 2005.
Talk given to The Friends of the Bodleian Library, June 2005
Premio Napoli (2004- ); Premio Crotone (2005-).
Introduction, H.G.Wells, The Time Machine Penguin Classics, 2005
‘The Pillars of Hercules: Plus Ultra, or the limits to “virtùecanoscenza”’, Talk to Dante Society, Oxford, 21 May 2002; published Raritan, Spring 2003‘ Ovid in America’, Raritan Summer 2002; translated, Palermo , 2004
Introduction, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Vintage Classics, 2004
‘Metamorphosis, or Some Thoughts of a Former Bird’, speech at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, Dinner in Middle Temple Hall,19 May 2002, published Brown Book, 2003
‘Castaway on the Ocean of Story: Metamorphic lives, resurrected tets’– Plenary talk to German Shakespeare Institute, 28 April 2002, published by Deutsche Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, Shakespeare Jahrbuch Band, Sept 2003
‘Spirits before my face’, in Caribbean Despatches: Stories of Changeand Movement’, ed. Jane Bryce, Macmillan Palgrave, forthcoming.
Numerous reviews (principally of books andehibitions) and shorter articles in various publications, including The Times Literary Supplement, The Times Higher Education Supplement, The London Review of Books, The New York Times BookReview, NY Times Magazine, The Independent, and The Independent on Sunday, The Guardian Review.
Judge of Booker Prize (l985),
Judge of Arts Council Award
George Orwell Prize (2003);
Preface to How We Recovered the Ashes by P.F.Warner (Centenary Publication, MCC, 2003)
Introduction to The World of Myth, British Museum Press, 2003
Introduction, The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night ( London :Folio Society, 2003)
‘Ectoplasm’, in Eggplant Dreaming, ed.Ivor Indyk, Heat 5 New Series, 2003
Spirit Visions 1: Figuring the Invisible 2: Materializingthe Impalpable Tanner Year Book 22 (1999-2000) Utah , 2001;
Introduction to Lorna Sage, Moments of Truth (London ,2001)
‘Painted Devils and Aery Nothings: Metamorphoses and Magic Art’, Proceedings of International Shakespeare Association Conference: Shakespeare and the Mediterranean, Valencia, May 2001.
# 1 reprinted in slightly different formas ‘Spirit Visions: Faces inthe Clouds , or, Figuring the Invisible’, RaritanI Spring 2002
‘Riscritture: traduzioni de storie et metamorfosi del mito’, in Le Riscritture del postmoderno Percorsi Angloamericani,eds. Ornella De Zordo e Fiorenzo Fantaccini (Bari , 2002).
‘Embodiments of Wisdom?’, review of Wendy Steiner, The Trouble withBeauty, TLS , March 8 2002
‘Magical Mystery Tourism’, review of Simon During, Modern Enchantments The Cultural Power of Secular Magic, Financial Times, 11-12 May 2002
Tribute to W.G. Sebald, Austerlitz, winner of Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, 11 April 2002, award ceremony speech.
‘Who’s Sorry Now?: Personal stories, public apologies’. Amnesty Lecture, Oxford 2002, (Oxford University Press, 2004); posted at http://www.opendemocracy.net December 2002.
Preface to Sally Anne Jane Purcell, Collected Poems , edited Peter Jay. London : Anvil Books, 2002
‘Science at the Séances’, review of Roger Luckhurst, The Invention of Telepathy, London Review of Books Vol 24, no.19 3 October 2002.
Introduction, Joan of Arc, ed. Monica Furlong. London, 1996
‘‘The foul witch’ and her ‘freckled whelp’: Circean mutations in the new world’, in The Tempest and its Travels, ed. Peter Hulme. London, 2001.
‘The Structure of the Imagination’, in Structure: The Darwin Lectures, 1998, ed.Wendy Pullan ( Cambridge, 2000)
Introduction, to Iona and Peter Opie, TheLore and Language of Schoolchildren, New York Review of Books, New York and London 2001
‘Leda and the Swan: The Unbearable Matter of Bliss’, in Poetry and Philosophy in the Middle Ages A Festschrift for Peter Dronke ed. John Marenbon (Leiden , 2000)
‘Le Mythe et la féerie: réécritureet récupération’, Actesdu colloque ‘Ou en est-on avec la théorie littéraire?’ (Paris VII, 1999) , eds.Julia Kristeva et Evelyne Grossman , Tetuel No. 37.Avril, 2000, pp.85-97
‘A Posy for the Misses Pinwell’, in The Character of the English Countryside (London , 2000)
‘Les femmes et le secret’ in Le Secret: motif et moteur de lalitterature. ed. Chantal Zabus. Louvain, l999.
‘Doubting Thomas’, in There Are Kermodians, ed. Anthony Holden and Ursula Owen ( London , l999).
‘The Old Wives’ Tale’, in The ClassicFairy Tales, ed. Maria Tatar, NewYork , l999.
‘“Nonsense Is Rebellion”: The Childs play of Lewis Carroll’, in LewisCarroll London : The British Council, l998.
‘“Fee Fie Fo Fum”: The child in the jaws of the story’, in Cannibalism and the Colonial World eds. Francis Barker, Peter Hulme, MargaretIversen. Cambridge , l998.
‘Why Do Ogres Eat Babies? Monstrous Paternity in Myth and Fairytales’,in Paternity and Fatherhood: Myths and Realities, ed. Lieve Spaas, London , 1998.
‘“Hush-a-bye Baby”: Death and Violence in the Lullaby’, Raritan ,VIII:1, Summer l998
‘Peroide Mug-Shot’, LRB, 1 January 1998 (on Myra Hindley)
‘The Enchantments of Circe’, Raritan VII:1 Summer l997
‘Ogres and storytellers: Strategies of resistance in the Italian fairytale’, The Italianist No. 17, 1997.
‘Angela Carter: Bottle Blonde, Double Drag’, in Flesh and the MirrorEssays on the Art of Angela Carter ed. Lorna Sage London, 1995
‘Cannibals and Kings’ (On ‘King Kong, Eighth Wonder of the World’)’,in Ape, Man, Apeman: Changing Views since 1600.Eds. Raymond Corbey and Bert Theunissen. Leiden , 1995.
‘Indigo - Mapping the Waters’, in EtudesBritanniques Contemporaines No. 5, Dec. 1994.
‘Joan of Arc: A Gender Myth’, in Joan of Arc: Reality and Myth, Ed Janvan Herwaarden. Rotterdam , 1994.
‘The Slipped Retina’, in The Power and the Throne: The Monarchy Debate, ed. Anthony Barnett. London, 1994
‘The Wronged Daughter in Fairytale: “Unnatural Love” in the cult of Saint Dympna and Charles Perrault’s’ Peau d’ane’, in Saints and Sagas ASymposium, eds. Hans Bekker-Nielsen and Birte Carle Odense, 1994
Cinema and the Realms of Enchantment. Lectures, Seminars and Essays by Marina Warner and others. Ed Duncan Petrie. London, 1994.
‘Rich Pickings’, in The Agony and the Ego The Art and Strategy ofFiction Writing Eplored, ed. Clare Boylan, London , 1993
Introduction, The Second Virago Book of Fairy Tales, ed. Angela Carter London, l993 (A tribute to AC based on the obituary I wrote in the Independent, Feb.1993)
‘Towards a Democratic Culture’, Charter 88 Paper, 1993.
‘Between the colonist and the creole: family bonds, family boundaries’, in Unbecoming Daughters of Empire. Ed. Anna Rutherford. Sydney and Mundelstrup, Denmark, 1993.
The Absent Mother, or, Women against Women in the Old Wives’ Tale’, Inaugural Lecture, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, 1991.
‘Laughter and Hope in the Old Wives’ Tale’, La Cenerentola, Programme, Royal Opera House (London, 1991),
‘Valmont - or the Marquise Unmasked’, inThe Don Giovanni Book; Myths of Seduction and Betrayal Ed. Jonathan Miller. London, l990.
Introduction to Leonora Carrington, The House of Fear: Notes from Down Below. London, 1988; and to Leonora Carrington, The Seventh Horse. London, 1988.
‘The Wronged Daughter’, Grand Street VII,3 (Spring 1988),143-63.
‘Fighting Talk’, in The State of the Language, ed. Leonard Michaels and Christopher Ricks, London , 1989, 100-109.
Introduction, Mildred Cable with Francesca French, The Gobi Desert (London, 1984)
Introduction to Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies,trans. E.J. Richards, New York, 1982..
‘The First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy’, in Incarnation: Contemporary Writers on the New Testament. Edited Alfred Corn, New York , 1989,76-82.
Uncollected (not reprinted in Signs &Wonders) Rose Dugdale Sunday Times Magazine 17 August 1974
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