Shadow Lives reveals the unseen side of the '9/11 wars': their impact on the wives and families of men incarcerated in Guantanamo, or in prison or under house arrest in Britain and the US. Victoria Brittain shows how these families have been made socially invisible and a convenient scapegoat for the state in order to exercise arbitrary powers under the cover of the 'War on Terror'.A disturbing expose of the perilous state of freedom and democracy in our society, the book reveals ho...

Fifteen specially commissioned essays from distinguished authors explore the place of the writer, past and present, the value of critical thinking, and the power of the written word. Their work articulates 'brave new words' at the heart of battles against limitations on fundamental rights of citizenship, the closure of national borders, fake news, and an increasing reluctance to engage with critical democratic debate. Contributors include Eva Hoffman, Romesh Gunesekera, Githa Hariharan, Ja...

A TOP 100 LITERARY WORK OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (THE ARAB WRITERS UNION) ~ RUNNER-UP TO THE WINNER OF THE 2025 SAIF GHOBASH BANIPAL PRIZE FOR ARABIC LITERARY TRANSLATION ~ A *BOOK RIOT*BEST BOOK OF 2024“A magnum opus of prose fiction”—Marina Warner, author of Once Upon a TimeA multigenerational epic set at the collapse of Muslim rule in Me...

An enchanting collection that introduces the author and activist Naomi Mitchison to a new generation of readersThe Fourth Pig, originally published in 1936, is a wide-ranging and fascinating collection of fairy tales, poems, and ballads. Droll and sad, spirited and apprehensive, The Fourth Pig reflects the hopes and forebodings of its era but also resonates with those of today. It is a testament to the talents of Naomi Mitchison (1897–1999), who wa...

* Shortlisted for the Palestine Book Awards 2016*Memoirs of an Early Arab Feminist is the first English translation of the memoirs of Anbara Salam Khalidi, the iconic Arab feminist. At a time when the effects of the revolution and counterrevolution of the Arab Spring loom heavy over Middle Eastern politics, this book brings to life an earlier period of social turmoil and women's activism through one remarkable life.Anbara Salam was born in 1897 to a notable Sunni Muslim fam...

Drawing on literature, myth, history, and tradition from different cultures, Marina Warner offers “a dazzling meditation on the idea of home, hospitality, and refuge” in our world of global turmoil (The Observer, UK).Sanctuary is an ancient right—a haven, a place of refuge and freedom from harm. In the classical world, it offered immunity to fugitives from justice; in medieval Europe it extended a reprieve to all who sought sanctuary in a church or holy si...

The first ever critical biography of Helen Chadwick, who died tragically young but is now revered as a pioneering feminist artist.Helen Chadwick (1953–1996) embraced the sensuous aspects of the natural world, breaking taboos of the "traditional" or "beautiful." Her sculpture, performance, and photography is radical, provocative, and often steeped in humor, and employs unusual, sometimes grotesque materials—bodily fluids, meat, flowers, chocolate, and compost among ...

This unique study of the cult of the Virgin Mary offers a way of thinking about the interrelations of Catholicism and ideas of ideal femininity over the longue duree. An ambitious history of the changing symbolism of the Mother of God, Alone of All Her Sex holds up to the light different emphases occurring at different times, and highlights that the apparent archetype of a magna mater is constantly in play with social and historical conditions and values. Marina Warner's interest...

From wicked queens, beautiful princesses, elves, monsters, and goblins to giants, glass slippers, poisoned apples, magic keys, and mirrors, the characters and images of fairy tales have cast a spell over readers and audiences, both adults and children, for centuries. These fantastic stories have travelled across cultural borders, and been passed on from generation to generation, ever-changing, renewed with each re-telling. Few forms of literature have greater power to enchant us and rekind...

Metamorphosis is a dynamic principle of creation, vital to natural processes of generation and evolution, growth and decay, yet it also threatens personal identity if human beings are subject to a continual process of bodily transformation. Shape-shifting also belongs in the landscape of magic, witchcraft, and wonder, and enlivens classical mythology, early modern fairy tales and uncanny fictions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This collection of essays, given as the Clarendon L...

By one of the finest English writers of our time, a luminous memoir that travels from southern Italy to the banks of the Nile, capturing a lost past both personal and historical.Marina Warner’s father, Esmond, met her mother, Ilia, while serving as an officer in the British Army during the Second World War. As Allied forces fought their way north through Italy, Esmond found himself in the southern town of Bari, where Ilia had grown up, one of four girls of a widowe...

A stunning work of memoir and an unforgettable depiction of the brilliance and madness by one of Surrealism's most compelling figuresIn 1937 Leonora Carrington—later to become one of the twentieth century’s great painters of the weird, the alarming, and the wild—was a nineteen-year-old art student in London, beautiful and unapologetically rebellious. At a dinner party, she met the artist Max Ernst. The two fell in love and soon departed to live and paint together i...