Marina Warner and the Ethics of Telling Silenced Stories

Lisa Propst argues that Marina Warner's work challenges the authority of the writer to tell other people's stories, while also demonstrating the power of literature to make new ethical connections between people.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 17 December 2020
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press

Social justice movements and academic disciplines like feminist and postcolonial studies place a high value on efforts to combat silencing. However, there is always a risk of appropriating the stories of those who have been silenced when claiming to give them a voice. Lisa Propst contends that British novelist and public intellectual Marina Warner provides some of the most thought-provoking contemporary responses to this dilemma. Propst demonstrates that Warner's writing, which spans from her early journalism to her novels, short stories, and studies of myths and fairy tales, challenges the authority of the writer to tell other people's stories. At the same time, it showcases the power of literature to create new ethical connections between people, prompting readers to reflect on their responsibilities and how they are implicated in social systems that perpetuate silencing.

By examining how to combat silencing through narrative without reproducing it, Marina Warner and the Ethics of Telling Silenced Stories addresses a topic that is of critical importance not only to literature and art but also to journalists, policymakers, human rights activists, and individuals seeking to formulate their responses to injustice.

Weight: 340g
Dimension: 153 x 228 x 19 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780228004042