Marina has been recording a podcast with the London Review of Books for their Close Reading series called ‘Fiction and the Fantastic’. The first episode is available from Monday 13th January, where Anna Della Subin joins Marina to discuss The Thousand and One Nights. 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.

Listen to Marina and Anna Della introduce the series here!

Going forward, there are three more episodes with Anna Della, then further episodes with Adam Thirlwell and Chloe Aridjis.

To listen to the full series, and all the other Close Readings series, sign up:

Directly in Apple Podcasts here

In other podcast apps here

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