Modern fairy tales: genre updating in Marina Colasanti’s young adults works

Abstract

Fairy tales are considered a genre from the past, belonging in a specific culture and historical period. Nonetheless, a contemporary writer brought about a very original revival of this narrative form in her works usually considered as “children’s literature”. This author is Marina Colasanti. The purpose of this essay is to analize – even if in a concise manner due to restricted space – how Colasanti updates fairy tales, by conceiving a double movement where her writing approximates and distances itself from some typical traces of this narrative genre. This analysis aims at apprehending how in Marina Colasanti’s works, this literary form, referred to as modern fairy tale, can be read and understood.