For Jeanette Winterson, stories are essential to survival

If you had to tell a story to stay alive … what story would you tell? Jeanette Winterson’s new book, One Aladdin Two Lamps , is a nonfiction exploration of storytelling, culture, politics and the things that make us human. It’s based on the One Thousand and One Nights , the famous collection of Middle Eastern folk tales home to characters like Aladdin, Sinbad and Ali Baba. At the centre of it all is Scheherazade, a woman who tells a vengeful Sultan stories for 1001 nights to stop him from executing her. Like Scheherazade, Jeanette sees storytelling as a means of survival. In the book, she uses those tales to muse on the way that stories shape our identities and our lives … and how they’re a tool to better ourselves and the world around us. Liked this conversation? Keep listening: Zadie Smith never thought she’d tell this story Ian McEwan has hope for humanity — here’s why Check us out on Instagram @cbcbooks and TikTok @cbcbooks

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For Jeanette Winterson, stories are essential to survival is an episode from Writers and Company from CBC Radio by CBC.

This episode is 00:37:01 long.

This episode was published on Mar 15, 2026.

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