Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins - Softcover

Donoghue, Emma

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0064407721 ISBN 13: 9780064407724

Publisher: HarperTeen, 1999

Synopsis

Thirteen tales are unspun from the deeply familiar, and woven anew into a collection of fairy tales that wind back through time. Acclaimed Irish author Emma Donoghue reveals heroines young and old in unexpected alliances--sometimes treacherous, sometimes erotic, but always courageous. Told with luminous voices that shimmer with sensuality and truth, these age-old characters shed their antiquated cloaks to travel a seductive new landscape, radiantly transformed.Cinderella forsakes the handsome prince and runs off with the fairy godmother; Beauty discovers the Beast behind the mask is not so very different from the face she sees in the mirror; Snow White is awakened from slumber by the bittersweet fruit of an unnamed desire. Acclaimed writer Emma Donoghue spins new tales out of old in a magical web of thirteen interconnected stories about power and transformation and choosing one's own path in the world. In these fairy tales, women young and old tell their own stories of love and hate, honor and revenge, passion and deception. Using the intricate patterns and oral rhythms of traditional fairy tales, Emma Donoghue wraps age-old characters in a dazzling new skin.

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About this title

Review:

At age 28 Emma Donoghue is already a marvel. The author of two critically acclaimed novels, a fascinating work of lesbian history, and a series of successful stage plays, Donoghue can apparently do anything. With Kissing the Witch, a collection of revisionist fairy tales, she has proven once again that she is a great writer. In these 13 interconnected tales she finds new meanings in old stories: Cinderella runs off with her fairy godmother, Snow White's awakening is more erotic than romantic, and Rapunzel discovers that her freedom, although not her salvation, is in her hair. Donoghue writes about women, some lesbians and some not, and makes them the center of her fantastical world. The bold, daring boys of the Grimm tales are not here, but in their place are vibrant, knowing, and brave women and girls who are finding out what the world holds for them.

About the Author:

Born in Dublin in 1969, EMMA DONOGHUE is a novelist, screenwriter and playwright who lives in Canada. Her novel Room won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Canada/Caribbean) and was shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange Prizes, selling more than two million copies. Donoghue scripted the Canadian-Irish film of Room which was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Her fiction (short and long) ranges from the contemporary (Stir-fry, Hood, Landing, Touchy Subjects) to the historical (Slammerkin, The Sealed Letter, Astray, Frog Music).  Donoghue’s books for young readers are The Lotterys Plus One and The Lotterys More Or Less. Her last novel for adults, The Wonder, was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

 

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperTeen
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0064407721
• ISBN 13: 9780064407724
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240