Juliet Marillier
Juliet Marillier is a New Zealand novelist working in the genres of fantasy literature and historical fantasy.
Born in Dunedin on 27 July 1948, Marillier was educated at the University of Otago before going on to establish herself as a writer in English. Her work spans both fantasy literature broadly conceived and the more specific terrain of historical fantasy, a genre that draws on the textures of the past to frame imaginative narratives.
Among the recognitions her fiction has received, Marillier has been awarded the Aurealis Award for best fantasy novel, a prize presented in Australia for speculative fiction, as well as the Imaginales award for best foreign-language novel, a French honour given at the Épinal festival dedicated to the fantastic arts. That her work has drawn recognition in two languages and across different national literary cultures speaks to the reach of her writing beyond the English-speaking world.
The recurring preoccupations of her work are rooted firmly in historical fantasy — a genre in which the invented and the historically situated exist alongside one another, and in which the conventions of fantasy literature find their grounding in period setting and cultural myth. These twin orientations, toward fantasy and toward history, define the shape of her output as a novelist and remain the consistent markers of her literary identity.
Quotes by Juliet Marillier
Juliet Marillier's insights on:
Prophecies don’t simply come about of themselves, you know. They need a little helping along.
Even when I was young and content and thought life would bring good things for me and mine, I didn’t believe in miracles.
Letters tell the truths a person will not speak. They contain the deepest of feelings, the wisest of stories. Letters are powerful. They contain messages of hope, love, change.
All the same, our eyes spoke of something good, something deep, something that could grow and flower if the world we lived in would allow it. Something too precious to put into words. Something I would not dare let out into the light of day, not yet.
It becomes easy,” Finbar said. “It’s in the training; the ability to see your enemy as something other than a real man. He is a lesser breed, defined by his beliefs – you learn to do with him what you will, and bend him to your purpose.
Another man might have taken vengeance in blood and fire, or made an end of himself. Regan is stronger than that. There’s a light shining in him, moving him forward: the light of freedom. That’s what draws all of us to follow, to take risks, to keep on figting when we see our comrades fall beside us. But there’s no light without shadow.
Can this be love that twists and tears the heart so? Does love give nothing but the power to hurt each other? Is this what makes the simplest touch blend longing and terror in equal measure? Whatever this is, it feels like a mortal wound.
The two of them are like open books, they speak the truth at the risk of their own lives, and when they keep silent their thoughts blaze like a beacon from their eyes.
To return to that realm of shadows for your sweetheart’s sake, Clodagh, is a breathtaking act of selfless love. I think you are the only talisman he needs.
Seven years of this and I’ll have lost whatever edge I once had,” I said. “I’ll have turned into one of those well-fed countrywomen who pride themselves on making better preserves then their neighbors, and give all their chickens names.