Imaginary Animals

Boria Sax teaches at Sing Sing prison and online in the graduate literature programme at Mercy University. He has published many books, which have won awards and been translated into numerous languages. His most recent is Avian Illuminations: A Cultural History of Birds (Reaktion, 2021).

"Boria Sax argues that monsters help us by giving concrete form to our fears, while wonders incarnate our hopes. Enlisting cultural support, whether from Hieronymus Bosch or PT Barnum, this teacher at Sing Sing prison shows how mermaids and dragons, even superheroes and Tamagochis, help us measure what it means to be human. A well illustrated and philosophically sophisticated book." - World of Interiors"A thought-provoking analysis of bestial creations, this illustrated compendium by Boria Sax scrutinizes artistic and literary models, ranging from Chauvet cave art from 36,000 BCE to political cartoons, graphic Japanese novels, and postmodern robotics. Conclusions about the nature and purpose of fantasy animals draw on scripture, anthropology, medicine, myth, and psychology . . . An intriguing, highly readable reference work at a low price, Saxs multifaceted work covers a host of reference needs. Recommended." - Choice"You would have thought perhaps that the animal kingdom as it stands was rich enough to excite us and capture our interest, without us having to imagine our own beasts. Wildlife documentaries exploring from our back gardens to the other side of the world are reliable favourites on TV schedules. The animal kingdom is so rich and diverse that it’s easy to astonish even the most seasoned zoo-goer. And yet, in Imaginary Animals, Boria Sax reels off countless examples of animals we have dreamt up ourselves . . . Sax leads us on a ceaseless and generously illustrated museum tour from one fantastical example to another." - Morning Star"Speaking as someone fascinated by all animals from earliest childhood, I found Imaginary Animals to be an intriguing and thought-provoking discovery. Scholarly and well-researched, without being either ponderous or condescending, it is written with real wit, and with a contagious delight in its subject rare in such a study. I would recommend it enthusiastically to anyone interested in the astonishing range of folkloric, religious, cultural, philosophic and political symbolism with which human beings have regarded and ceaselessly recreated real animals in our time together on this planet." - Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn