(Dis)Enchanting the City: Charles de Lint’s Urban Fantasy Fiction

Abstract

Abstract The aim of this article is to investigate the works of Charles de Lint in order to evaluate their position within the genre of urban fantasy. The theoretical framework is adopted from Stefan Ekman’s article “Urban Fantasy: A Literature of the Unseen” (2016) which investigates the genre’s development and formulates a list of its most distinctive features. While this article uses Ekman’s study to examine de Lint’s fictional cities, it also indicates how de Lint’s works challenge Ekman’s analysis. Moreover, the article demonstrates how de Lint’s concern with problems of urban communities transforms his works into narratives of social inclusion, which are particularly significant in the age of the Anthropocene.