Marina Warner

Marina Warner is a writer of fiction, criticism and history; her works include novels and short stories as well as studies of art, myths, symbols and fairytales.
“My critical and historical books and essays explore different figures in myth and fairy tale, such as the Virgin Mary and Joan of Arc; more recently I have concentrated on fairy tales, including the Arabian Nights. I also write novels and short stories, often drawing on mythic or other imaginary predecessors to translate them into contemporary significance – to re-vision them.

Stories come from the past but speak to the present, and I have found that I need to write stories as well as deconstruct them and place them in historical contexts, because I myself love reading works of imagination, and I would like to join the conversation with admired predecessors, who range from Apuleius to Virginia Woolf, Italo Calvino, and Angela Carter.”

Recent Diary Entries

EXPeditions – Sanctuary: Ways of Telling, Ways of Dwelling, in conversation with Lisa Appignanesi

11/05/26

Listen to Marina in conversation with Lisa Appignanesi about Sanctuary: Ways of Telling, Ways of Dwelling: Marina Warner takes the idea of Sanctuary into an ethical and imaginative register and consider it as a set of images, places, stories, as well a …

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5 May 2026 – The Country of Words, Birkbeck Arts Week event + workshop

22/04/26

Julia Bell’s new book, Between the Lines, explores the creative writing class from personal experience of its dynamics. Marina Warner’s recent study, Sanctuary: Ways of Telling, Ways of Dwelling, proposes that imaginative story-making can build home an …

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17 April 2026, discussing ‘Sanctuary’, Barnsbury Book Festival, 3.30 – 4.30pm

12/03/26

Marina Warner’s numerous books, stories and essays explore myth, storytelling, history and society. In Sanctuary she investigates ideas of refuge, hospitality and belonging, and how storytelling helps people endure and understand crisis. She will be di …

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Latest Publications