Abstract

I will be discussing how Frances Hardinge uses the language and imagery of the ridiculous in Gullstruck Island to introduce children to persecution, genocide and other amusing habits. In Gullstruck Island she constructs a text grounded in theories of post-colonialism which destabilise readings of “normal” and expose the degree to which “normal” is a complex inter-action of the ideology imposed by the colonial, and resisted and negotiated by the colonised.

Dr. Farah Mendlesohn is Reader in Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature at Middlesex University. She has served as President of the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts, and as head of programme for a Worldcon. Between 2001 and 2007 she edited Foundation: the International Review of Science Fiction, and she has edited several essay collections. Forthcoming is the Cambridge Companion to Fantasy which she edited with Professor Edward James. Her research includes books on Diana Wynne Jones, and on science fiction for children and teens, but her best known book is Rhetorics of Fantasy. She is currently working on an introduction to children’s fantasy literature with Professor Mike Levy.