A.S. Byatt is a British author who is best known for her novel Possession, which won the Man Booker Prize. This essay, however, will focus on Byatt’s use of elements of myth and fairy tale in her short story collection The Djinn in the Nightingale’s Eye. This collection is certainly not the first time Byatt has incorporated fairy tale motifs into her fiction.[1] Byatt’s signature approach tends to combine magic, fantasy, and conventional fairy tale tropes with a realist style and an attention to ordinary life. Her stories can be considered postmodern fairy tales, as they self-consciously explore the parameters of the genre; they are stories about stories.[2] ________________ [1] For analyses of Byatt’s use of fairy tale and myth in other works of fiction, see: Charlotte Beyer, “‘Life was a state in which a war was on’: A.S. Byatt’s Portrayal of War and Norse Mythology in Ragnarok: The End of the Gods,” War, Myths, and Fairy Tales, edited by Sara Buttsworth and Maartje Abbenhuis (Palgrave, 2016). [2] See also Jessica Tiffin, “Caught in a Story: A.S. Byatt,” Marvelous Geometry: Narrative and Metafiction in Modern Fairy Tale, edited by Jessica Tiffin (Wayne State University Press, 2009) pp.101-129.