Ten top works of fabulist fiction

Kathryn Harlan received an MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she now teaches writing. She was the recipient of the 2019 August Derleth Graduate Creative Writing Prize. Her work has appeared in the Gettysburg Review, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere.

Harlan's debut short story collection is Fruiting Bodies.

At Publishers Weekly she tagged ten favorite works of fabulist fiction, including:

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

Carter reinvents popular fairytales with enthralling prose and compelling psychological realism. Some of the stories follow familiar patterns, while others

twist off in entirely new directions, but all of them manage to feel novel and to bring a new angle to your understanding of the fairytale. The Bloody Chamber would be worth reading if only for the influence it’s had on other fabulist writers (much of this list included) but it also happens to be an exceptionally good book, a modern classic that feels no less vibrant or immediate now than it must have 40 years ago.

Read about the other entries on the list at Publishers Weekly.

The Bloody Chamber is among Lucy Hughes-Hallett's four top books based on myths, Dan Coxon's top ten folk tales in fiction, Sam Reader's top five books that give old legends a new spin, four books that changed Angelica Banks, four books that changed Justine Larbalestier, Stephanie Feldman's ten creepiest books, and Jonathan Stroud's favorite fantasy books.

--Marshal Zeringue