Gregory Maguire writes literary fantasy that revisits well-known stories from the viewpoint of characters who were marginal, villainous or simply unexplained in the originals. Wicked reimagines the world of The Wizard of Oz through Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West, placing her childhood, education and political opposition inside a more morally complicated version of Oz. Later books continue the lives of characters affected by Elphaba and the regime around them. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister turns Cinderella into a story about beauty, class and art in seventeenth-century Holland, while Mirror Mirror reworks Snow White in Renaissance Italy. Maguire's novels are darker and more political than straightforward fairy-tale retellings, combining familiar plots with adult literary fiction. Readers looking for revisionist fantasy rather than straightforward fairy-tale retellings will find his work closer to Angela Carter and Jeanette Winterson, with familiar stories used to question the moral labels attached to their original characters. Read more Less
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