The best fiction of 2022: Zoe Gilbert’s Mischief Acts and reclaiming the myths of the natural world

By Joe Bedford, PhD in Literature and Languages, University of Leicester

Every culture, by and large, has its myths of the natural world. There are myths of the forests, myths of the seas and rivers, myths of the deserts, mountains and jungles. Some of these myths, like some of the ancient creation stories, predate culture as we currently understand it.

They are stories through which we, the dominant species on this planet, negotiate our relationship with the plants and animals we share this space with. They lend the natural world a sense of enchantment – a sense that the world is a place of magic and mystery.

But in a world in which these…

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