The Djinn In The Nightingale's Eye: A. Byatt

A S Byatt`s fairy tales and fables are among the best-loved features of her fiction. Innumerable readers have asked for the two marvellous fairy tales in possession - `The Glass Coffin` and `Gode`s Tale` of the Breton Naie des Trepasses - to be published separately.

Here they take their place with three other stories with medieval and middle eastern settings. The title story, `The Djinn and the Nightingale`s Eye`, a long story about an Englishwoman in Turkey who unwittingly releases a genie from his bottle, is a reflection on women`s lives, on magic and on the power of storytelling itself, and has inspired the new film Three Thousand Years of Longing starring Idris Elba and Tilda Swinton.