Fairy Tales gathers together four minidramas by the Swiss writer Robert Walser that are unconventional versions of Grimms’ fairy tales transformed into metatheater, even metareflections—that is, ironical commentaries of the originals. Here Snow White forgives the evil queen for trying to kill her, Cinderella suffers a double-bind between being scorned by her stepsisters and her prince, and the Sleeping Beauty is not happy with being woken from her sleep by an absurd, unpretentious hero who could be Walser himself as he is in his novels, stories, and poems.