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Writer and historian Marina Warner at her home in north London. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian
Pandemic conditions meant I couldn’t visit Marina Warner, but I’ve been to her house, in London, once before, and I’ll try to remember it for you because it hums with enchantment. First you must open the wicket gate off the street, brushing past clambering plants to reach the front door. Inside, you climb a slim staircase. The walls are crammed with art, and you’ll want to pause and look: there’s a little Paula Rego that shows the householder reading a story to an entranced wolf from Little Red Riding Hood, a reference to Warner’s lifelong study of fairytales and myths and her role too as a storyteller, author of novels and stories and children’s books. Over a door is a wooden sculpture by her son, the artist Conrad Shawcross, called