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

22 October 2026 Issue, New York Review of Books: ‘Possessed of Alchemystic Powers’

05/10/26

In this issue of the NYRB, Marina writes about Ithell Colquhoun – artist, writer and occultist – looking to various books to shape her in-depth piece, including Ithell Colquhoun: Between Worlds, Goose of Hermogenes and I Saw Water: An Occult Novel and …

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‘Rachel Weeping for Her Children’: Memories of Massacre, Flight and Refuge – Anna Jameson Lecture 2026 now online!

29/09/26

On March 23 2026, Marina gave the Anna Jameson Lecture 2026 at the National Gallery. Fifty years after the publication of Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and the Cult of the Virgin Mary (1976), Marina Warner revisited the figure of the mater dolorosa th …

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29 September 2026, 6-8pm, Richard Saltoun Gallery, ‘On Felicity Powell: In-Conversation with Marina Warner & Sarah Turner’

07/09/26

As part of the programme for The Studio of Felicity Powell exhibition (on display until 3 October 2026), Marina will be in conversation with Sarah Turner (Director of the Paul Mellon Centre). Marina Warner is a writer of cultural history, fiction and c …

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Latest Publications