Medusa's Ankles

A luminous selection of short stories from the Booker prize-winning A. S. Byatt, celebrating over thirty years of writingWith an introduction by David MitchellMirrors shatter at the hairdressers when a middle-aged client explodes in rage. Snow dusts the warm body of a princess honing it into something sharp and frosted. Summer sunshine flickers on the face of a smiling child who may or may not be real.Peopled by artists, poets and fabulous creatures, these stories blaze with creativity and travel from Ancient myth to an English sweet factory, a Chinese restaurant to a Mediterranean swimming pool, a Turkish bazaar to a fairy-tale palace. Byatt takes her readers beyond the veneer of the ordinary and the gloss of the fantastical, to a place rich in ideas, vivid in colour and wholly unforgettable.'A cabinet of curiosities... Glitteringly beautiful' Sunday Times'A cerebral extravaganza, bristling with ideas' Spectator'Moving, thought-provoking, witty and shocking all at once' Sunday Telegraph