Twisted Tales
We never seem to lose our fascination for fairytales. Here are some weird and wonderful adaptations that take familiar stories down unfamiliar paths…
Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan
This is a dark, beautiful, and brutal retelling of “Snow White and Rose Red” by the Brothers Grimm. Liga attempts to protect her two daughters, Branza and Urdda, from the cruelties and dangers of the real world. But what happens when her safe haven is breached and the border between two worlds comes apart?
Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi
Perdita lives with her mother Harriet and grandmother Margot in west London - but buried in her mother’s gingerbread recipe is the story of her past in the mysterious country of Druhástrana. Playful, modern and unusual, this phantasmagoria has echoes of Hansel and Gretel, but draws on a host of fairytales to delve into questions of home, origin, family, and Otherness.
What It Means When A Man Falls From The Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
A collection of stories that travels between Nigeria and America, encompassing myths, fables, and speculative dystopias. It focuses on the lives of girls and women and their feelings of dislocation, need, and longing: in one particularly haunting tale, a woman desperate for a child weaves one out of hair, with disturbing and uncanny results. This collection is both playful and bleak, shadowy yet luminous.
Magic For Beginners by Kelly Link
No one is as funny as Kelly Link. This collection of short stories mixes fairytale, light horror, and sci-fi with modern American life - there are haunted houses, bewitched handbags, rabbits, zombies, a woman called “The Crocodile,” and an uncomfortably large rubberband ball. Original, surreal, hilarious, and dark.
Her Body And Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado
Carmen Maria Machado draws on a mix of fairy tales, folklore, pop culture, and Gothic literature to critique representations of sexual violence meted out on women’s (particularly queer women’s) bodies. A highlight is the novella titled “Especially Heinous: 272 Views of Law & Order: SVU,” written as increasingly surreal episode synopses of the famous police prodedural: filled with ghosts, doppelgangers, and the supernatural, it critiques our insatiable hunger for prime-time violence.
Apple And Knife by Intan Paramaditha
These visceral short stories use fairytales and horror to critique misogyny and violence in contemporary Indonesia. The women that take centre stage are fierce, erotic, and often seeking revenge. Ranging from murder to menstruation (sometimes in the same story), Paramaditha’s collection is supernatural, subversive, and full of simmering feminist rage.
Diving Belles by Lucy Wood
These quiet, melancholy tales are set in the uncanny and magical landscape of the Cornish coasts. In one story, a woman slowly turns to stone; in another, restless house spirits post dried autumn leaves through the letterbox and keep a watch on the living. A melding of Cornish folklore with the everyday.
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
After Coraline’s family moves into a new house, she finds a secret fourteenth door. Within the dark, parallel world she enters is another mother and father who don’t want her to leave. An eerie and engaging adventure that stays with you long after you’ve finished reading.