Tales for Fairies
Tracing Queer Fairy-Tale Retellings
Alba Morollón Díaz-Faes author Anne E Duggan editor
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Wayne State University Press
Published:13th Jan '26
Should be back in stock very soon
This paperback is available in another edition too:
- Hardback£81.00(9780814350430)
A groundbreaking exploration of how classic fairy tales have been transformed to illuminate and celebrate queer identities. This scholarly account provides a trailblazing examination of how contemporary authors, artists, and creators have reclaimed the fairy tale for queer audiences. Alba Morollón Díaz-Faes examines the queer threads in classic fairy tales—like those in the works of Giambattista Basile, the Brothers Grimm, and Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy—while tracing how queer communities have reshaped these stories to reflect changing social and political realities from the 1990s to the present. This comprehensive study historicizes three periods of queer transformation of the fairy tale: the first wave of fairy-tale publications for a predominantly gay male readership in the 1990s, a second wave in the 2000s that navigated queer politics through nuanced tales of monstrosity and heroism; and a third wave in the 2010s of online queer communities circulating creative contestations to Disney's fairy tales. With case studies from film to text to social media, Díaz-Faes demonstrates how the inherent fluidity in fairy tales allows for the amplification of queer voices and experiences. Ultimately, Tales for Fairies not only reveals the long-standing compatibility between queerness and the fairy tale but also charts an evolving landscape where imagination, activism, and retelling intersect to create a vibrant tradition of queer enchantment.
"Alba Morollón Díaz-Faes makes a much-needed and welcome contribution to fairy-tale studies! Historicizing English-language gay and queer retellings across media from the 1990s to the 2010s, this study highlights how these fairy tales activate queer wonder, repurpose queer monsters, and navigate the changing challenges of mainstream culture. Cristina Bacchilega, professor emerita, University of Hawaii at Mānoa, and coauthor of Justice in 21st-Century Fairy Tales and the Power of Wonder
An exquisite blend of sociohistorical criticism, queer theory, and close reading, Tales for Fairies pulls at the queer threads of fairy-tale history and examines closely the overlooked, explicitly queer retellings of recent decades in the strange and fluid genre of fairy tales. This provocative, fabulous book is an exciting addition to the nascent field of queer fairy-tale studies. Christy Williams, author of Mapping Fairy-Tale Space: Pastiche and Metafiction in Borderless Tales and coeditor of Marvels & Tales: Journal of Fairy-Tale Studies (both Wayne State University Press)
I have hoped for a book that might tackle the breadth of emergent queer fairy-tale creation, aided by the LGBTQIA rights movement and technological innovations. Finally, that book has arrived in Tales for Fairies. I am overjoyed! Not unlike a witch's potent brew, the right ingredients are poured into this concise, deftly written analysis by Díaz-Faes. She keenly historicizes contemporary queer fairy-tale projects of reclamation and revision and provides illuminating, highly creative, and politically potent examples from the queer counterpublics of international authors, artists, and fans working to reveal the fairy tale's always-ready queer potential. Just to name a few: Peter Cashorali's revolutionary 1990s anthologies of gay fairy tales for men; cartoonist José Rodolfo Loaiza Ontivero's queer Disney parodies; and Alexis Isabel Moncada's wildly popular X campaign, #GiveElsaAGirlfriend. Díaz-Faes's readings of these and many more recent incursions prove techno-capitalism to be a perverse playground for creatively subverting the demonization of difference. The princess is no longer asleep, nor is she following the straight path to crappy endings. The princess read Tales for Fairies, and she's headed to the drag ball. Kay Turner, coeditor of Transgressive Tales: Queering the Grimms (Wayne State University Press)
ISBN: 9780814350423
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
288 pages