Professor Dame Marina Warner

Professor Dame Marina Warner

CH, DBE, FRSL, FBA
Literature, Modern Languages
Distinguished Fellow since 2019

Marina Warner is a writer of cultural history, fiction and memoir. She has explored different figures in myths and fairy tales such as the Virgin Mary, Joan of Arc, and Shahrazad in the 1,001 Nights (see selected publications). Her essays on literature and art are collected in 'Signs & Wonders' (1994) and 'Forms of Enchantment: Writings on Art and Artists' (2018), and she is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. She also writes novels and short stories, often drawing on mythic or other imaginary predecessors to translate them into contemporary significance. Since 2016, she has been working on the concept of sanctuary with the project Stories in Transit in Palermo, Sicily, which she writes about in her most recent book. She has curated exhibitions, including the recent show 'The Shelter of Stories' at Compton Verney (2025-2026).

Links
Email: marner.warner@all-souls.ox.ac.uk
ORCID
Personal Website
Research Areas
Myths and Symbols
Fairy Tales and Folklore
Contemporary Retellings and Translations

Selected Publications

‘Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form’

(1985)

‘From the Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers’

(1994)

‘Stranger Magic: Charmed States & the Arabian Nights’

(2011)

‘Inventory of a Life Mislaid: An Unreliable Memoir'

(2021 [US title, Esmond & Ilia])

‘Sanctuary: Ways of Telling, Ways of Dwelling’

(2025)

‘Myth, Magic and Marvels’

(forthcoming)

Selected Honours and Awards
  • Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (1984)
  • Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (2000)
  • Commendatore dell'Ordine della Stella di Solidarieta (2005)
  • Fellow of the British Academy (2005)
  • Appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) (2008)
  • Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) (2015)
  • Holberg Prize (2015)
  • President of the Royal Society of Literature (2017–2021)
  • British Academy Medal "for lifetime achievement" (2017)
  • Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy (2018)
  • Companion of Honour (2022)
  • Robert B. Silvers Prize for Literary Criticism (2024).