MARINA WARNER is a writer of fiction and cultural history and has published many award-winning works, including Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary, Joan of Arc: The Image of Female Heroism, Monuments & Maidens, critical studies of fairy tales and the thousand and one nights (Stranger Magic) and a memoir, Inventory of a Life Mislaid, about her parents’ life in Cairo during the 1950s. She read French and Italian at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and served as President of the Royal Society of Literature (2017-21). In 2015 she was awarded the Holberg Prize in the Arts and Humanities. The same year she was made DBE and, in 2022, a Companion of Honour. She is Professor of English and Creative Writing at Birkbeck and a Distinguished Fellow at All Souls, Oxford. She lives in London.