# data[].attributes.body
This biographical article goes into the life of Helen Oyeyemi. She was born in Nigeria, but grew up in South London. Oyeyemi talks about her childhood and her love for writing beginning when she rewrote the endings of classic novels. In the article she said that Louisa May Alcott's Little Women inspired her to become a writer. She wrote her first book at 18, instead of reaching for A-levels in school. She is now living in Prague, continuing to write. Oyeyemi feels that "feelings are forces. They cause us to time travel. And to leave ourselves, to leave our bodies." She believes in magic and monsters, which is very prevalent in her novels.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Being haunted seems like it might be an occupational hazard for Helen Oyeyemi. Her books are re-worked fairy tales, the gruesome kind, with beheadings and wicked stepmothers and ghosts and death, death, and more death (though, once dead, her characters don't always stay that way).

The first time I met her, it was in a bar so dark that all I could see were her eyes and very white teeth. Cheshire cat-like, she reminded me of a line from her fourth novel, Mr. Fox: "There's something ghostlike about this girl ... she will appear at certain times and in certain places, and at other times she will recede into a disinterested dark." She's talking quietly but with great concentration about elephants, which she says are her spirit animals.

The next day, we sit in a quiet restaurant on the Upper West Side. One-on-one, in bright light, she solidifies, densifies, and even becomes a little bit loud. When she laughs, it has the force of an unleashing - harsh, wild, almost a cackle.

We have come from a media lunch, at one of those restaurants where, when you order ravioli, they give you exactly four pieces arranged tastefully on a plate. Anthony Weiner walked by, face set and nostrils flared. ("That," Oyeyemi said later, "was not a good omen.")

She lives in Prague, but her publisher has flown her to New York for a three-day publicity blitz, which has left her looking drained and a little bit hunted. Her fifth novel, Boy, Snow, Bird, is coming out in March. She consents to pose with a cardboard mockup of the book cover, but she holds it up so it covers everything except her eyes.

Oyeyemi was something of a child literary star, having written her first book at 18 "instead of studying for A-levels." But now that she's almost 30 and on her 5th book, the label is beginning to chafe. "It's getting embarrassing because I'm getting older and older. I'm 29. I just have to brush it off now," she says. "Otherwise it's going to stop me from doing what I want to do. I want to get better. I want to write things. I'm seeing this as a long game - I want to write as many books as I'm allowed to publish."

Elephants are just one aspect of her intricate personal symbology. She keeps talismans - keys that don't open anything, teapots, certain scents. And she's a spiritual magpie as well. She is Catholic but "in it for the mysticism," and she says she's afraid of cats because she can't account for their intentions. Monsters are real. Magic is real. "The way that people feel changes everything," she says. "Feelings are forces. They cause us to time travel. And to leave ourselves, to leave our bodies." She adds, "I would be that kind of psychologist who says 'You're absolutely right - there are monsters under the bed."

"And," she smiles nervously, "sometimes I feel weird about time. Sometimes I feel that it doesn't go in the order we perceive it. There are ... repetitions that maybe we decide not to notice because it is simpler. I like to pick up on those moments."

Born in Nigeria, Oyeyemi grew up in Lewisham, South London. Her father is a substitute teacher and her mother works for the London Underground. "I was always at the library," she says, "since we didn't have many fiction books at home." Reading Little Women as a child "turned me into a writer," she says. "I had so many problems with it. I was so upset with Beth dying, with Jo and Laurie not getting married. So I just crossed out all those things and wrote new endings. Then I went from there to writing my own things and never really looked back."

In her latest book, Boy, Snow, Bird, three women with strange names reenact the Snow White myth in 1950s New England. Boy, a runaway from New York City, marries Arturo, and they have a child Bird. But Bird's dark skin reveals reveals Arturo's secret: his family is a light-skinned black family "passing" as white. Boy grows to resent Snow, Arturo's beautiful blond daughter from a previous marriage, and sends her away to keep her away from her dark-skinned little sister.

In Boy, Snow, Bird, beauty is treacherous; one character stops going to school because of the overwhelming attention from her classmates. Another is raped. Another's father tries to disfigure her to protect her from the curse of beauty. Oyeyemi says that in stories and in real life, beauty is a power that "is used against its holder."

She was struck by the story of Snow White, she says, because, "I found it so strange how she could be so mild and so sweet after everything she's gone through. She's thrown out of her house by her wicked stepmother. She has to live with these dwarves. There's so much front to it. And it started to scare me because I thought that beneath that front there must be so much suffering. Snow, in all her unexposed beauty, and being in a way public property of everyone who looks at her, goes through that. I find something so terrible about suffering in the open in public, with nobody seeing what's happening to you."

Oyeyemi says that she thinks of herself as "ugly but interesting," and she's happy with that. "It helps me to think more clearly, if that makes sense."

I ask why she thinks she 's ugly.

"Boys would come up and tell me," she says, matter-of-factly. "I'd be on the bus home, and they would say, "You're so ugly, do you know that?" And after a while, I would just say, "Yes, thank you." At first I would cry. But I after a while you just think 'Why does it matter so much?'"

Oyeyemi clearly still carries wounds from her teenage years: "I was suicidal for a long time in my teens and I was so unhappy," she says. "It was the kind of unhappiness that you know everyone else is feeling, but you don't care because you've dehumanized them, because they're all monsters and demons and beasts who are out to kill you, so you become a beast and a monster yourself. I regret so much."

Her fairy tales are not of the happily-ever-after variety: "Sometimes people ask me what I write and I say that I retell fairy tales, and they say, 'Oh, children's books!' And that makes me laugh. People say things like 'I want a fairy tale existence.' The Brothers Grimm would be looking at them in this astonished way, like 'So you would like your whole family to be murdered and then eaten in a pie?'" She laughs delightedly.

"People think they're soft because they're these perfect examples of narrative order. There is an ending that is usually happy, and a beginning, middle, and end ... In this era where everyone is kind of postmodern and meta, we dissociate in a lot of ways from our circumstance. So I think there's that sense that they're so ordered, and therefore orderly, but actually, they're just completely chaotic."

And fairy tales teach lessons, she says. Lessons like "Everything that you see is not necessarily what it is. You have to find another way to know things. You have to find another way to know things. There is inner vision. And then there's exterior vision. There are levels of seeing."

They reveal "some of the hardest and harshest truths about the ways that we live and the ways that we've always lived." She cites a story she found in a book of Czech fairy tales. A princess is being courted by a magician, but she refuses him. In punishment, the magician turns her into a black woman. As Oyeyemi read it, she started crying. "It was awful ... The worst thing that the teller of this tale can imagine is being black." In Boy, Snow, Bird, she writes, "it's not whiteness that sets Them against Us, but the worship of whiteness." She tells me, "I feel as if we're still in that era. There are still lots of ways in which it is horrific not to be the norm."

Boy, Snow, Bird is her "quiet book," Oyeyemi says. All of her books have personalities: Her first book, The Icarus Girl, which she wrote at age 18 instead of studying for those A-levels, is "startled, wide-eyed."

"I was a baby," she says. "I had no idea what I was doing. I was just 18 and writing this novel instead of doing my homework. I don't think I understood that it was going to be read. So that has a kind of - not innocence - but a kind of unworldliness to it. I don't think I could ever write like that again."

People say things like 'I want a fairy tale existence.' The Brothers Grimm would be looking at them in this astonished way, like 'So you would like your whole family to be murdered and then eaten in a pie?'

Her second novel is, (and here her voice deepens, and she does a little regimental arm swing) "look at me! I can write sentences!" She laughs. Her third, White Is for Witching, "has a sharp personality, and I think it's in a way an unlikeable book, because it talks about racism and eating disorders and hauntings. It's a book that doesn't want to be read, in some way."

" Mr. Fox is a kind of playful, romping around one." (Her idea of play clearly involves a lot of beheadings).

She talks about her books as though they are people, and as if she isn't particularly responsible for what they're like. She doesn't write: writing "comes upon" her. Plots run away from her, though she tries to contain them. She's a kind of beleaguered shepherd, trying to rein in her characters as they incline, inevitably, towards chaos. She says, "When I feel like my characters are staring to disobey is when I feel like they're alive and something is starting to happen."
When I point out that she talks as though she's just a vessel for her stories, she laughs. "It's a great way of abdicating responsibility."

Critics like to call Oyeyemi's books "magical realism," but she hates that tag. "It's not what I write," she says, flinging her hands up in exasperation. "I don't have a style. I just try to write what the story demands."

She does have a style, a kind of jolly gruesomeness, though it isn't easy to categorize. In the way that a child might, without any real malice, pluck the legs off an insect and watch it squirm, Oyeyemi pins her subjects to the wall and makes them wriggle. It's a little wry, a little earnest, a little dangerous - weird and familiar at the same time.

Over the years, she's bounced around between Paris, Toronto, London, Prague, Berlin, Budapest, and Prague again. "I feel a need to choose a city, or have a feeling that it chooses me," she explains.

"I hit something in eastern Europe. There's something so strange about it that ties in with my psychology. There's a kind of volatility. When the changes happen they're fantastical changes, like in Prague just recently, the festival of light. There's a tower on a hill, and they transformed it into a lighthouse and the hill into waves. So when the city changes it's a big shift. Cities like New York and London change in increments. Places open and close. Places like Prague and Budapest, they change. Nights in Budapest are so dark, maybe because the street lighting is so terrible, but the nights seems darker and full of shadows."

"Don't you get lonely, moving alone?" I ask. "I have enough friends," she says. "I don't need any more, unless one dies and then I can replace them." She laughs her abrupt laugh.

The hardest thing about moving, Oyeyemi says, is moving her books. "And my teapots. I have eleven teapots now. I think I need to stop. They're fragile. I always get so nervous, like, My god, am I going to make it through with my teapots? My most recent one I got in Moscow with a firebird on it, a creature from Russian mythology.

"The way I live now is that I only write, which means that I'm very poor but very happy," she says. "Everything in my life is the way I want it to be."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Professionally Haunted Life Of Helen Oyeyemi

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Being haunted seems like it might be an occupational hazard for Helen Oyeyemi. Her books are re-worked fairy tales, the gruesome kind, with beheadings and wicked stepmothers and ghosts and death, death, and more death (though, once dead, her characters don't always stay that way).

# data[].attributes.body
Written two years after the release of Mr. Fox in 2014, this article dives into setting and time of the novel. The author, Heidi Yeandle, gives an in-depth explanation of the story, and how it relates to the 17th French folktale "Bluebeard" by Charles Perrault. Yeandle explains that this version, set in the 1930s, depicts the main character as a literary Bluebeard. “Oyeyemi’s adaptation, though, re-imagines the relationship between Bluebeard’s wives, depicting a ghostly sisterhood between Daphne Fox and Mary Foxe, the real and imaginary wives of the eponymous St John Fox, Oyeyemi’s version of Bluebeard," (Yeandle). The author continues to analyze the fascinating display of multiple storylines conveying the warped sense of reality Mr. Fox discovers when communicating with Mary. Yeandle does an amazing job of explaining the complex and intricate plot.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In a Granta Magazine interview with Ted Hodgkinson, Helen Oyeyemi talks about re-writing the endings of canonical texts to suit her own reading of the novel in question. Writing in the margins of library books, Oyeyemi 'would cross out endings that I didn't like and I would rewrite them [...] I would order everything to my taste, and everything that I decided would happen, happened' (Oyeyemi to Hodgkinson). This process of re-imagining and adapting texts is central to her 2011 novel , which offers a new interpretation of the infamous "Bluebeard" story. In this fairy tale, Bluebeard's young bride is given the keys to all of the rooms in his home while he goes away, and is told she can explore her new surroundings with the exception of one room. A moral tale advising against female curiosity, Bluebeard's wife goes against these orders and opens, in Angela Carter's terms, "the bloody chamber" where she finds the tortured remains of his previous wives who, like her, were disobedient. Following in the footsteps of Daphne du Maurier, Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter,[1] Oyeyemi's novel illustrates the continuing 'cultural investment in an old tale about a bad marriage' (Tatar 57). Oyeyemi's adaptation, though, re-imagines the relationship between Bluebeard's wives, depicting a ghostly sisterhood between Daphne Fox and Mary Foxe, the real and imaginary wives of the eponymous St John Fox, Oyeyemi's version of Bluebeard.
In 'Mr Fox,' Oyeyemi re-imagines the infamous Bluebeard story which advises against female curiosity.
[Image used under fair dealings provisions]

Mr Fox is set in the 1930s, and rather than depicting a real wife-killer, St John Fox is a literary Bluebeard: he is a writer who has a penchant for killing his female characters. St John Fox's imaginary muse Mary Foxe challenges him to stop writing stories that feature gynaecide, accusing him of a being a 'villain' because 'You kill women. You're a serial killer' (4). In a further change to the traditional story and many variations where Bluebeard has one current wife who finds a bloody chamber full of the dismembered bodies of her predecessors, in Mr Fox the title character has two "wives": Daphne Fox, his real wife, and Mary Foxe - the muse who embodies John's idea of the perfect woman. Rather than finding a room full of John's dead ex-wives, Daphne discovers that her husband's imaginary ideal woman has invited herself into their marital home, which - unsurprisingly - puts a strain on their relationship. As Daphne says, 'I, the real woman, the wife, had nothing on the made-up girl' (198).

Maria Tatar 's argument that 'Bluebeard's wife has been reinvented so many times that she has every right to complain of an identity crisis' (4) is particularly apt in Oyeyemi's novel. As John's creation, Mary's identity is entirely constructed: John named her and controls her. One of the attributes that makes Mary the perfect woman is that John can silence her as he wishes. For instance, when he gets tired of her he says, 'Just be quiet. In fact - you can't speak. You've just lost your voice, Mary', and he 'closed her voice up in my hand' (231). Oyeyemi therefore re-imagines the controlling aspect of the traditional Bluebeard story, where Bluebeard punishes disobedient wives, by giving John the ability to silence his muse. Similarly, the opening page of the novel shows that John asserts authority over Daphne, portraying his wife as an object that can be manipulated to meet his requirements. He notes that Daphne 'doesn't dare complain' anymore because 'she is physically unable to': John says that this is 'because I fixed her early. I told her in heartfelt tones that one of the reasons I love her is because she never complains' (1). John's Bluebeard-inspired power is therefore asserted over both of his "wives".

What is more, both Mary and Daphne recall other tales in the Bluebeard canon. As well as having connotations of the ideal Virgin Mary, Mary's name corresponds to the name of the heroine in the story of 'Mr. Fox', Lady Mary. Oyeyemi references this story early in her novel, giving a chapter the title 'be bold, be bold, but not too bold' (10), the warning written over Bluebeard's doorway in the 'Mr. Fox' tale (Jacobs in Tatar 186). But Daphne also identifies with the role of Bluebeard's wife. Jonas Pizarsky, a neighbour, tells Daphne the story of 'Fitcher's Bird' in which the Bluebeard character is preparing to marry his bride but she escapes looking like 'a strange bird' (Grimm in Tatar 184). As Pizarsky tells Daphne, the liberated bride's identity is limited to that of "Bluebeard's wife" once she is free, as in her madness she 'used the only words she hadn't forgotten, I'm a bird, I'm Fitcher's bird ' (Mr Fox, 229: original emphasis). Daphne identifies with the heroine of 'Fitcher's Bird', telling Pizarsky that the character 'went insane because of him [...] I think that's happening to me' (230). To contrast this, Pizarsky tells Daphne that, in 'Mr. Fox', Lady Mary conquered 'Mr Fox just by telling him what she'd seen in his house', giving Lady Mary, as Daphne notes, the 'power to walk away, or stay, save his life, order his death' (247). As well as voicing the power that Lady Mary asserts over Mr Fox, and therefore the power that Mary Foxe has over St John Fox, it is clear that Daphne recognises that she lacks the courage to confront her husband about Mary. Reflecting on Lady Mary's actions, Daphne says that 'I don't know what I'd have done in her place' (247), illustrating the opposition between John's wives: their power (or lack of).
Mary Foxe - the muse who embodies St John Fox's idea of the perfect woman who can be silenced at any time.
[Image by Eugenia Loli under a CC BY NC ND licence]

Daphne's jealousy of Mary, as John's ideal woman, is made clear in the novel, as Oyeyemi depicts a rivalry between them from Daphne's perspective. Daphne ransacks her husband's office in a bid to find a clue as to who John's other woman is, and shouts 'WHO IS SHE? THIS WOMAN YOU'RE HUMILIATING ME WITH' (71). John's revelation that Mary is 'only an idea' (73) is threatening for Daphne. Her interrogation of her husband reveals insecurities about her appearance as well as about their marriage, with Daphne asking John if he tells Mary secrets, or if she is 'prettier than me' (74). This is exacerbated when Daphne finds a list comparing her and Mary, where Daphne's merits are that she 'is real. Is predictable [...] Doesn't know me', while Mary 'is so many things - (too many things?). Is unpredictable [...] There's nothing she doesn't know about me' (198). This discovery leaves Daphne with 'my head in my hands, shaking' because John 'was trying to choose between me, his wife, and someone he had made up' (198).

However, as well as showing a contrast between the two wives, Oyeyemi also depicts an uncanny doubling between Mary Foxe and Daphne Fox, exploring resemblances between them beyond their 'almost identical surnames' (127). In a story called 'What Happens Next' that features in the novel, Mary meets John, following the suicide of Daphne. Thus, while for much of the novel 'Mary "Ghost" Foxe' (31) is the spectral wife, this story positions Daphne in a ghostly role. In a scene reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier's ,[2] where the narrator, the second Mrs de Winter, explores her new home of Manderley and is haunted by the presence of the eponymous Rebecca, her husband's first wife, in 'What Happens Next' Mary inhabits Daphne's space, following in the footsteps of her predecessor. While researching John Fox and discovering Daphne's story, Mary says that 'Daphne Fox looked familiar to me', and reveals that they are both redheads (142). But Mary goes on to explore Daphne's room and bed and wonder 'How had she lain? What had she looked at?' (161). As well as retracing and occupying Daphne's physical space, Mary physically resembles Daphne: as well as having similar hair, Mary wears Daphne's slippers, which 'were just my size' (163).

This doubling and approximation of Daphne and Mary's bodies in 'What Happens Next' illuminates the resemblances between the two wives; as well as re-imagining the second Mrs de Winter's haunted exploration of Manderley, it recalls the bodily contact that du Maurier depicts between the narrator and Rebecca. The narrator wears Rebecca's mackintosh and notes that it was 'far too big for me and dragging to my ankles' (68) - in this Bluebeard tale, the clothing exacerbates the contrasts between the new bride and the deceased wife. In Mr Fox, however, the slippers illustrate the similarities between Daphne and Mary. But the end of 'What Happens Next' is particularly telling, suggesting a sisterhood between Mary and Daphne. Mary contemplates leaving John, but the apparitional Daphne encourages Mary to 'stay here' and 'take care of him' (171), wanting her widowed husband to be happy. Daphne also asks Mary to make John believe that he is not to blame for Daphne's suicide, asking Mary to 'tell him [...] it's not his fault about me' (171). Thus, Oyeyemi portrays a supportive relationship between Mary and Daphne, highlighting relationships between women in a fairy tale where the contact between women's bodies is usually confined to dismembered body parts being housed in a bloody chamber.
Oyeyemi re-imagines the relationship between Bluebeard's wives, depicting a ghostly sisterhood between Daphne Fox and Mary Foxe, the real and imaginary wives of St John Fox.
[Image by Alba Soler under a CC BY NC ND licence]

The idea of Daphne and Mary as sisterly doppelgängers remains intact after the 'What Happens Next' story. Towards the end of Mr Fox the imaginary Mary and real Daphne start spending time together without John, and Daphne feels uncomfortable about Mary, thinking that John 'was going to drop me and live with her' (241). However, challenging Daphne's assumption that Mary would be slimmer than her, Daphne gives Mary a lilac shirt to wear, and was 'glad' to discover that they 'were the same dress size' (242). The doubling between Mary and Daphne here becomes apparent when Daphne reveals that this is her favourite item of clothing because she'd 'worn it in Buenos Aires, on the first day of our honeymoon' (242); Mary inhabits the role of the new bride in this attire. As well as mirroring each other, Oyeyemi represents a ghostly sisterhood between John's wives. Mary encourages Daphne to write the book she has in mind, ' Hedda Gabler and Other Monsters ' (260), a text in which there are no murderers, so, as Daphne notes, 'everyone will survive' (252). Mary leaves John and Daphne at the end of the novel to go travelling, asking Daphne to send her the manuscript of her novel, and adding 'don't talk yourself out if it - you can do it, and it's going to be really good' (260), once again illustrating a supportive relationship between them, while inverting the ghostly relationship between them in 'What Happens Next'.

Overall, Helen Oyeyemi's Mr Fox re-imagines the infamous Bluebeard fairy tale, portraying a literary Bluebeard character in the form of St John Fox, who has two "wives". Daphne and Mary are portrayed as ghostly doubles, with emphasis being placed on the similarities rather than differences between them, in opposition to du Maurier 's , as well as the support that they offer each other. However, the end of the novel questions how amicable Daphne and Mary's relationship is. Mary's note results in Daphne realising 'just how similar Mary's handwriting was to St John's' (261), and thus discovering that it was in fact Mary who wrote the list comparing them both, therefore bringing into question the sisterhood portrayed between them. As Mary's return is imminent - she's 'dying to know what it'll be like when I come home' (260) - it could be that Bluebeard's wives are re-united, re-igniting the strain on Daphne and John's marriage.

CITATION: Heidi Yeandle, "Re-imagining Bluebeard's Wives: Helen Oyeyemi's Mr Fox," , Alluvium, Vol. 4, No. 6 (2016): n. pag. Web. 5 January 2016 http://dx.doi.org/10.7766/alluvium.v4.6.04

[1] Du Maurier's Rebecca (1938), Atwood's 'Bluebeard's Egg' (1983) and Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber' (1979) are all inspired by the "Bluebeard" tale.

[2] It may be that Oyeyemi is explicitly acknowledging a connection with Rebecca, with Daphne's name recalling the author of Rebecca.

Dr Heidi Yeandle is based at Swansea University and is currently working on her first monograph, Angela Carter and Western Philosophy. Her research on Carter has been published in Contemporary Women's Writing and I magining the End: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Apocalypse. She has a forthcoming chapter on Carter and Claude Levi-Strauss in Marie Mulvey-Roberts' edited collection The Arts of Angela Carter: A Multidisciplinary Kaleidoscope, which is due to be published in Manchester University Press in 2017.
Works Cited:
Atwood, Margaret. "Bluebeard's Egg". Bluebeard's Egg and Other Stories. London: Vintage, 1996.

Carter, Angela. "The Bloody Chamber". Burning your Boats: Collected Stories. London: Vintage, 2006.

Du Maurier, Daphne. Rebecca. London: Virago, 2003.

Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. "Fitcher's Bird". In Maria Tatar's Secrets beyond the Door: The Story of Bluebeard and his Wives. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Hodgkinson, Ted. "Helen Oyeyemi: The Granta Podcast, Ep. 68". Granta: The Magazine of New Writing [online] 20 May 2013. http://granta.com/Helen-Oyeyemi-The-Granta-Podcast-Ep.-68/ [accessed 05 November 2015]

Jacobs, Joseph. "Mr. Fox". In Maria Tatar's Secrets beyond the Door: The Story of Bluebeard and his Wives. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Oyeyemi, Helen. Mr Fox. London: Picador, 2012.

Tatar, Maria. Secrets beyond the Door: The Story of Bluebeard and his Wives. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2004.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Re-imagining Bluebeard's Wives: Helen Oyeyemi's Mr Fox

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In a Granta Magazine interview with Ted Hodgkinson, Helen Oyeyemi talks about re-writing the endings of canonical texts to suit her own reading of the novel in question. Writing in the margins of library books, Oyeyemi 'would cross out endings that I didn't like and I would rewrite them [...]

# data[].attributes.body
This is a podcast in which Helen Oyeyemi speaks to Ted Hodgkinson about the amusement of writing from a male perspective, the role of magic in her work, some of her many influences and how as a young girl she used to rewrite the endings of classic novels. When considering how magical realism and perspective factors into her work, it was imperative to listen to her own explanations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Ted Hodgkinson is the previous online editor at Granta. He was a judge for the 2012 Costa Book Awards' poetry prize, announced earlier this year. He managed the Santa Maddalena Foundation in Tuscany, the affiliated Gregor Von Rezzori Literary Prize and still serves as an advisor. His stories have appeared in Notes from the Underground and The Mays and his criticism in the Times Literary Supplement. He has an MA in English from Oxford and an MFA from Columbia.

More about the author →

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Podcast | Helen Oyeyemi | Granta Magazine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Ted Hodgkinson is the previous online editor at Granta. He was a judge for the 2012 Costa Book Awards' poetry prize, announced earlier this year. He managed the Santa Maddalena Foundation in Tuscany, the affiliated Gregor Von Rezzori Literary Prize and still serves as an advisor.

# data[].attributes.body
This is cover art for the album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood by artist Neko Case. I think this artwork perfectly encapsulates the themes of the novel. There is a fox holding the head of a woman, with many others around him. There is also a woman holding a head and gesturing out to the fox. I believe this symbolizes the relationship between all of the characters. Mr. Fox struggles with the ability to keep female characters alive in his stories, while also struggling to keep his marriage with his real wife afloat. This piece of art captures those problems obviously, while also portraying the obscurity of the narrative.

# data[].attributes.body
Wolf, by Carina Bissett, mirrors the writing seen in Mr. Fox. It hides a complex message through a classic fairytale, much like Helen Oyeyemi does with her novels. A grim retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, this poem symbolizes strong desire, "I can't bear the torment, the bliss, the fear of your savage secrets. I love you so. I'll gobble you up." This is a perfect example of the magical realism readers experience when reading Oyeyemi's stories.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I'll never forget the first moment I saw you

flying across field and fallow

in a wild ride to grandmother's house -

scarlet cape streaming out behind you,

white hands urging that black steed

to madness, to death, to certain ruin.

Like one of the furies you appeared,

a creature not of this tame green place

but of my land,

where the lamia creep in crags and caves

and the bogey haunt misty borderlands.

A country where ghouls devour the sun

and the whirlwind stirs the fog on a whim.

I watched and waited.

And when I realized nothing pursued you,

not a demon's furious hunt or a spurned lover.

I smiled

and followed quietly on the forest fringe.

And now as the darkness approaches,

my appetite whetted by the rising moon,

ravenous thoughts consuming me,

forcing me to madness at the lush pain of it all

I raise my voice to the stars

and surrender.

I can't stand the fierce seduction a moment more -

that thick, dark pelt of sable hair and scarlet hood

hiding the heat of your throbbing pulse

from my ears, eyes and mouth.

I can't bear the torment, the bliss,

the fear of your savage secrets.

I love you so.

I'll gobble you up.

About the Author: Carina Bissett is a journalist, poet, and fiction writer living in northern Arizona. This poem was inspired by the fairy tale Little Red Riding Hood.

"Wolf" © 2001 by Carina Bissett. The poem may be not be reproduced in any form without the author's express written permission.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I'll never forget the first moment I saw you flying across field and fallow in a wild ride to grandmother's house - scarlet cape streaming out behind you, white hands urging that black steed to madness, to death, to certain...

# data[].attributes.body
Bluebeard, by Charles Perrault, is a 17th century french folktale. In this story, Bluebeard is a wealthy man of rank who, soon after his marriage, goes away, leaving his wife the keys to all the doors in his castle. Although he forbids her to open one of them. She disobeys and finds in the locked room the bodies of his former wives. On his return, Bluebeard discovers on one of the keys a spot of blood and threatens to cut off her head as a punishment for disobedience. The wife is saved by her brothers just as Bluebeard is about to strike the final blow. Helen Oyeyemi heavily based her main character Mr. Fox on this folktale. It is important to note this piece when diving into the characters and situations that occur in Oyeyemi's narrative.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The embedded audio player requires a modern internet browser. You should visit Browse Happy and update your internet browser today!

There was, some time ago, a gentleman who was very rich. He had fine town and country houses, his dishes and plates were all of gold or silver, his rooms were hung with damask, his chairs and sofas were covered with the richest silks, and his carriages were all gilt with gold in a grand style. But it happened that this gentleman had a blue beard, which made him so very frightful and ugly, that none of the ladies, in the parts where he lived, would venture to go into his company. Now there was a certain lady of rank, who lived very near him, and had two daughters, both of them of very great beauty. Blue Beard asked her to bestow one of them upon him for a wife, and left it to herself to choose which of the two it should be. But both the young ladies again and again said they would never marry Blue Beard; yet, to be as civil as they could, each of them said, the only reason why she would not have him was, because she was loath to hinder her sister from the match, which would be such a good one for her. Still the truth of the matter was, they could neither of them bear the thoughts of having a husband with a blue beard; and besides, they had heard of his having been married to several wives before, and nobody could tell what had ever become of any of them. As Blue Beard wished very much to gain their favour, he asked the lady and her daughters, and some ladies who were on a visit at their house, to go with him to one of his country seats, where they spent a whole week, during which they passed all their time in nothing but parties for hunting and fishing, music, dancing, and feasts. No one even thought of going to bed, and the nights were passed in merry-makings of all kinds. In short, the time rolled on in so much pleasure, that the youngest of the two sisters began to think that the beard which she had been so much afraid of, was not so very blue, and that the gentleman who owned it was vastly civil and pleasing. Soon after their return home, she told her mother that she had no longer any dislike to accept of Blue Beard for her husband; and in a very short time they were married.

About a month after the marriage had taken place, Blue Beard told his wife that he should be forced to leave her for a few weeks, as he had some affairs to attend to in the country. He desired her to be sure to indulge herself in every kind of pleasure, to invite as many of her friends as she liked, and to treat them with all sorts of dainties, that her time might pass pleasantly till he came back again. "Here," said he, "are the keys of the two large wardrobes. This is the key of the great box that contains the best plate, which we use for company, this belongs to my strong box, where I keep my money, and this belongs to the casket, in which are all my jewels. Here also is a master-key to all the rooms in the house; but this small key belongs to the closet at the end of the long gallery on the ground floor. I give you leave," said he, "to open, or to do what you like with all the rest except this closet. This, my dear, you must not enter, nor even put the key into the lock, for all the world. If you do not obey me in this one thing, you must expect the most dreadful punishments." She promised to obey his orders in the most faithful manner; and Blue Beard, after kissing her tenderly, stepped into his coach, and drove away.

When Blue Beard was gone, the friends of his wife did not wait to be asked, so eager were they to see all the riches and fine things she had gained by marriage; for they had none of them gone to the wedding, on account of their dislike to the blue beard of the bridegroom. As soon as ever they came to the house, they ran about from room to room, from closet to closet, and then from wardrobe to wardrobe, looking into each with wonder and delight, and said, that every fresh one they came to, was richer and finer than what they had seen the moment before. At last they came to the drawing-rooms, where their surprise was made still greater by the costly grandeur of the hangings, the sofas, the chairs, carpets, tables, sideboards, and looking-glasses; the frames of these last were silver-gilt, most richly adorned, and in the glasses they saw themselves from head to foot. In short, nothing could exceed the richness of what they saw; and they all did not fail to admire and envy the good fortune of their friend. But all this time the bride herself was far from thinking about the fine speeches they made to her, for she was eager to see what was in the closet her husband had told her not to open. So great, indeed, was her desire to do this, that, without once thinking how rude it would be to leave her guests, she slipped away down a private staircase that led to this forbidden closet, and in such a hurry, that she was two or three times in danger of falling down stairs and breaking her neck.

When she reached the door of the closet, she stopped for a few moments to think of the order her husband had given her, and how he had told her that he would not fail to keep his word and punish her very severely, if she did not obey him. But she was so very curious to know what was inside, that she made up her mind to venture in spite of every thing. She then, with a trembling hand, put the key into the lock, and the door straight flew open. As the window shutters were closed, she at first could see nothing; but in a short time she saw that the floor was covered with clotted blood, on which the bodies of several dead women were lying.

These were all the wives whom Blue Beard had married, and killed one after another. At this sight she was ready to sink with fear, and the key of the closet door, which she held in her hand, fell on the floor. When she had a little got the better of her fright, she took it up, locked the door, and made haste back to her own room, that she might have a little time to get into a humour to amuse her company; but this she could not do, so great was her fright at what she had seen. As she found that the key of the closet had got stained with blood in falling on the floor, she wiped it two or three times over to clean it; yet still the blood kept on it the same as before. She next washed it, but the blood did not move at all. She then scoured it with brick dust, and after with sand, but in spite of all she could do, the blood was still there; for the key was a fairy who was Blue Beard's friend; so that as fast as she got off the blood on one side, it came again on the other. Early in the same evening Blue Beard came home, saying, that before he had gone far on his journey he was met by a horseman, who was coming to tell him that his affair in the country was settled without his being present; upon which his wife said every thing she could think of, to make him believe she was in a transport of joy at his sudden return.

The next morning he asked her for the keys: she gave them to him; but as she could not help showing her fright, Blue Beard easily guessed what had been the matter. "How is it," said he, "that the key of the closet upon the ground floor is not here?" "Is it not?" said the wife, "then I must have left it on my dressing-table." "Be sure you give it me by and by," replied Blue Beard. After going a good many times backwards and forwards, as if she was looking for the key, she was at last forced to give it to Blue Beard. He looked hard at it, and then said: "How came this blood upon the key?" "I am sure I do not know," replied the poor lady, at the same time turning as white as a sheet. "You do not know?" said Blue Beard sternly, "but I know well enough. You have been in the closet on the ground floor! Very well, madam: since you are so mighty fond of this closet, you shall be sure to take your place among the ladies you saw there." His wife, who was almost dead with fear, now fell upon her knees, asked his pardon a thousand times for her fault, and begged him to forgive her, looking all the time so very mournful and lovely, that she would have melted any heart that was not harder than a rock. But Blue Beard only said, "No, no, madam; you shall die this very minute!" "Alas!" said the poor trembling creature, "if I must die, give me, as least, a little time to say my prayers." "I give you," replied the cruel Blue Beard, "half a quarter of an hour: not a moment longer." When Blue Beard had left her to herself, she called her sister; and after telling her, as well as she could for sobbing, that she had but half a quarter of an hour to live; "Prithee," said she, "sister Anne," (this was her sister's name), "run up to the top of the tower, and see if my brothers are not in sight, for they said they would visit me to-day, and if you see them, make a sign for them to gallop on as fast as ever they can." Her sister straight did as she was desired; and the poor trembling lady every minute cried out to her: "Anne! sister Anne! do you see any one coming?" Her sister said, "I see nothing but the sun, which makes a dust, and the grass, which looks green."

In the meanwhile, Blue Beard, with a great cimeter in his hand, bawled as loud as he could to his wife, "Come down at once, or I will fetch you." "One moment longer, I beseech you," replied she, and again called softly to her sister, "Sister Anne, do you see any one coming?" To which she answered, "I see nothing but the sun, which makes a dust, and the grass, which looks green." Blue Beard now again bawled out, "Come down, I say, this very moment, or I shall come to fetch you." "I am coming; indeed I will come in one minute," sobbed his wretched wife. Then she once more cried out, "Anne! sister Anne! do you see any one coming?" "I see," said her sister, "a cloud of dust a little to the left." "Do you think it is my brothers?" said the wife. "Alas! no, dear sister," replied she, "it is only a flock of sheep." "Will you come down, madam?" said Blue Beard, in the greatest rage. "Only one single moment more," said she. And then she called out for the last time, "Sister Anne! sister Anne! do you see no one coming?" "I see," replied her sister, "two men on horseback coming; but they are still a great way off." "Thank God," cried she, "they are my brothers; beckon them to make haste." Blue Beard now cried out so loud for her to come down, that his voice shook the whole house. The poor lady, with her hair loose, and all in tears, now came down, and fell on her knees, begging him to spare her life; but he stopped her, saying, "All this is of no use, for you shall die," and then, seizing her by the hair, raised his cimeter to strike off her head. The poor woman now begged a single moment to say one prayer. "No, no," said Blue Beard, "I will give you no more time. You have had too much already." And again he raised his arm. Just at this instant a loud knocking was heard at the gates, which made Blue Beard wait for a moment to see who it was. The gates now flew open, and two officers, dressed in their uniform, came in, and, with their swords in their hands, ran straight to Blue Beard, who, seeing they were his wife's brothers, tried to escape from their presence; but they pursued and seized him before he had gone twenty steps, and plunging their swords into his body he fell down dead at their feet.

The poor wife, who was almost as dead as her husband, was not able at first to rise and embrace her brothers; but she soon came to herself; and, as Blue Beard had no heirs, she found herself the owner of his great riches. She gave a part of his vast fortune as a marriage dowry to her sister Anne, who soon after became the wife of a young gentleman who had long loved her. Some of the money she laid out in buying captains' commissions for her two brothers, and the rest she gave to a worthy gentleman whom she married shortly after, and whose kind treatment soon made her forget Blue Beard's cruelty.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The embedded audio player requires a modern internet browser. You should visit Browse Happy and update your internet browser today! There was, some time ago, a gentleman who was very rich.

# data[].attributes.body
The Art of Courtly Love is a book by Andreas Capellanus, in which he explains the social system of 'courtly love'. Written during the 12th century, this work may be viewed as didactic, mocking, or merely descriptive. It preserves the attitudes and practices that were the foundation of a long and significant tradition in English literature. Helen Oyeyemi used in her novel to display a strained relationship so desperately trying to follow these strict rules. She notes in the novel, "rule of particular interest to Daphne Fox, Mary Foxe, and St. John Fox have been highlighted by those persons in the order mentioned," (277). She uses these regulations to depict the unconventional entwined relationship the three main characters share.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
After becoming popularized by the troubadours of southern France in the twelfth century, the social system of 'courtly love' soon spread. Evidence of the influence of courtly love in the culture and literature of most of western Europe spans centuries. This unabridged edition of codifies life at Queen Eleanor's court at Poitiers between 1170 and 1174 into 'one of those capital works which reflect the thought of a great epoch, which explain the secret of a civilization.' This translation of a work that may be viewed as didactic, mocking, or merely descriptive, preserves the attitudes and practices that were the foundation of a long and significant tradition in English literature.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
After becoming popularized by the troubadours of southern France in the twelfth century, the social system of 'courtly love' soon spread. Evidence of the influence of courtly love in the culture and literature of most of western Europe spans centuries.