"Infinite Others": Mythpunk and Middle-Eastern Folklore in Catherynne M. Valente's Young Adult Novels

Abstract:Catherynne M. Valente breaks up and remakes the Orientalist map of Anglo-American fantasy through a process of aggressive revision that she calls "mythpunk." Like her predecessors, Valente borrows images from Middle Eastern folklore, but her mixing and re-remixing of global cultural traditions is value neutral. She does not use images from any one region of the world to represent cultural superiority or inferiority, or to demarcate opposing sides in a battle between good and evil. Her mythpunk approach to fantasy rejects the binary thinking that structures much of C.S. Lewis' influential Chronicles of Narnia—but it at the same time, it engages deeply with the element of cultural syncretism that Lewis himself also includes.