Jones, Diana Wynne

(British, 1934– )

Diana Wynne Jones is one of the foremost exponents of ‘young adult’ fantasy. Her works tend to bring characters of myth or fantasy into homely or domestic settings, as for instance in Archer's Goon (1984), in which an adolescent thug who appears in a middle-class kitchen turns out to be an emissary in a war of wizards and spaceships; or Hexwood (1993), in which an English copse becomes the focus of a struggle involving a galactic empire. Domestic and mythical themes are movingly mingled in Fire and Hemlock (1984), which on one level follows the fortunes of a teenager from a broken home, complete with inept father, neurotic mother, and hostile stepmother, and on the other re-enacts the traditional ballad of ‘Tam Lin’ and his rescue from the fairy queen.

Ursula Le Guin, Alan Garner. See FANTASY  TS