LMH Alumna Dr Lorna Robinson (1996, Literae Humaniores) has published her latest novel, Hamadryad, a bold blend of science fiction, ancient Roman religion, and dystopian fiction that explores humanity’s relationship with nature in a climate-ravaged future.
Set in a future United Kingdom transformed by environmental crisis, Hamadryad imagines a society in which humans are bonded to trees. After a Green Party election victory, the country’s young and bold new leader institutes a national programme to restore ancient traditions, from instituting huge civic festivals to mandating different personal names. In the aftermath of this new world, a small community forms in the abandoned tunnels of the London Underground which questions the changes, while others embrace the new order with a cult-like intensity. Hamadryad imagines the lives of three very different people with their trees, and explores the way the world changes when we fundamentally alter our sense of self.
Lorna has previously published two novels. The Birder is a magical realist novel set in a world where people transform into animals instead of dying. The novel is illustrated throughout with linocuts depicting birds in locations around the city of Oxford. Flower Gatherers re-imagines the Minoans through the intertwined narratives of a young girl growing up on an ancient island, and a modern researcher who discovers inscriptions which overturn the understanding of the ancient civilisation.
She has also published Telling Tales in Nature, a project re-imagining Greek myths connected to plants. As well as fiction, Lorna has published a series of storybook courses Telling Tales in Latin: Parts 1 and 2, and Telling Tales in Greek. She published her doctoral research in Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Ovid: Magical and Monstrous Realities.
Alongside her writing, Lorna is the founding director of the Iris Project, an educational charity introducing the languages and culture of the ancient world to UK state schools, with a focus on curriculum enrichment. Based at Cheney School in Oxford, the Iris Project runs a wide range of initiatives in state schools across the country, focusing especially on children in socially excluded inner city regions.
As part of her work with the Iris Project, Lorna founded and runs the Rumble Museum at Cheney, a unique partnership between an educational charity and a school. The museum is spread across various areas of the school site, and features original and replica artefacts from a range of eras and on different themes. It is the first and only Arts Council Accredited school museum.
