Eliza Granville

Eliza Granville’s internationally-acclaimed novel Gretel and the Dark, was published in February 2014 by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books. This novel emerges from her PhD research at Aberystwyth University and she has mentioned on many occasions how invaluable her studies have been in the process – in particular the help from her primary supervisor.

Eliza Granville has previously published novels through small presses under the name of Liza Granville: Baiting the Unicorn; Curing the Pig; The Crack of Doom; Until the Skies Fall; The House in the Riddle; The Tor; The Nine Witches of Glawster; South of Yesterday, and a novella Snatchling. Since her given name is Elizabeth, she likes to use various forms of it. The use of Eliza for the publication of Gretel and the Dark is, she says, “a nod to modern communication... as in e-Liza”.

‌Gretel in the Dark pays homage to her fascination with memory, fairy tales and folk-lore. The novel is an attempt at historicising the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale and how fairy tales, whether in displaced or disguised form, always reference a personal or communal trauma. Eliza finds inspiration in a variety of things. As she puts it: “Long life - lots of interests, woven together.”  However, she is particularly intrigued by solitary characters and outsiders, which shines through in much of her writing. There is also a particular connection to Wales in the choice of her setting: much of her work is set in the Welsh Marches.

Recently, she has been working on two novels. One is the first in a proposed series of novels (each self-contained) retelling the stories of female characters from The Mabinogion, the folk tales of Wales. She has called the series The Welsh Tales. She is also working on a novel about Perrault and the French fairy tales.