But it was Tituba’s love of the slave John Indian that led her from safety into slavery, and the bitter, vengeful religion practiced by the good citizens of Salem, Massachusetts. She was raised from then on by Mama Yaya, a gifted woman who shared with her the secrets of healing and magic.

I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé: “ At the age of seven, Tituba watched as her mother was hanged for daring to wound a plantation owner who tried to rape her. Thenceforth scandal flits through the darkening, crooked streets of Eastwick and through the even darker fantasies of the town’s collective psyche.” Their happy little coven takes on new, malignant life when a dark and moneyed stranger, Darryl Van Horne, refurbishes the long-derelict Lenox mansion and invites them in to play. Alexandra, a sculptor, summons thunderstorms Jane, a cellist, floats on the air and Sukie, the local gossip columnist, turns milk into cream. The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike: “ Toward the end of the Vietnam era, in a snug little Rhode Island seacoast town, wonderful powers have descended upon Alexandra, Jane, and Sukie, bewitching divorcees with sudden access to all that is female, fecund, and mysterious. At each turn in his life there is Ultima who will nurture the birth of his soul.” Under her wise guidance, Tony will probe the family ties that bind him, and he will find in himself the magical secrets of the pagan past-a mythic legacy equally as palpable as the Catholicism of Latin America in which he has been schooled. She graces him with the courage to face childhood bigotry, diabolical possession, the moral collapse of his brother, and too many violent deaths. Soon Tony will journey to the threshold of manhood. And so Ultima comes to live with Antonio’s family in New Mexico. ‘It is not the way of our people,’ agrees his father. ‘We cannot let her live her last days in loneliness,’ says Antonio’s mother. She is a curandera, one who heals with herbs and magic. If only Chrestomanci could come and sort out all the trouble!”īless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya: “ Antonio Marez is six years old when Ultima enters his life. And yet, suddenly magic is breaking out all over the place–like measles! The last thing anybody needs is a visit from the Divisional Inquisitor. For this is Larwood House, a school for witch-orphans, where witchcraft is utterly forbidden. When the note, written in ordinary blue ballpoint, appears between two of the homework books Mr Crossley is marking, he is very upset. Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones: “SOMEONE IN THIS CLASS IS A WITCH. By signing up you agree to our terms of use Thank you for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox. But it is to say I’m far more attached to Hermione than Harry. That’s also not to say I can’t enjoy boy or man witch fiction. That’s not to say men are stricken from the definition of witch. I’m obsessed with books about witches and witchcraft not only because I secretly want to fly a broomstick, but because I most enjoy reading books about women in possession of power (whether or not they wield it expertly) and society’s response to them. You can learn a lot about how women are viewed across time and place by way of these witch stories. As interesting are the differences in the story of the witch.

In reading works on a topic as ubiquitous as “the witch,” where she’s represented in a multitude of cultures, sometimes under a different moniker, often not, the commonalities one witch shares with her sisters of lore and reality across the sea never fail to surprise me. In my insatiable search for books about witches, I’ve become fascinated by the many shapes the witch takes in fiction, and the intersections of thought about what it means to be a witch. We read about the wicked witch of fairy tale, and then perhaps the teen witch who bumbles with newfound power, and then the mysterious but alluring adult witch. There’s a reason there are so many books about witches, many more than the 100 in this list. She is the healer, the medicine woman, the bruja, the Mother, the crafty Instagrammer. To some, the witch is a figure to fear to others, she’s one of empowerment. A witch is a woman in possession of power.

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