Zen Cho delivers 2025 Tolkien Lecture

Read below words by undergraduate student and member of the 2025 Tolkien Lecture committee, Nadia Polonsky (2023, Psychology and Linguistics), on Zen Cho's lecture. The Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature is an annual lecture with a guest speaker, organised by a committee of Pembroke students and alumni, in memory of renowned fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien who was a Fellow at Pembroke. 

On 19th May we were delighted to welcome Zen Cho to Pembroke as this year’s speaker for the 2025 Annual J.R.R Tolkien Lecture on Fantasy Literature. Zen is the acclaimed author of several fantasy and romance books, including Black Water Sister (2022), The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water (2021) and The True Queen (2019). Her debut collection of short stories Spirits Abroad (2015) won the Crawford Award and her first novel Sorcerer to the Crown (2016) won the British Fantasy Newcomer Award.

Over a hundred Pembroke students and fantasy-enthusiasts gathered in the Pichette Auditorium for Zen’s lecture 'The Uses of Fantasy'. Zen explored the possibilities that the fantasy genre offers to authors and to readers. ‘I'm not that interested in the utilitarian sort of approach to literature that's only interested in asking what it does for the real world. I think it's a big assumption that the physical realm or society is the only real world, right? We all carry worlds inside us, which are arguably as important. The insides of our heads are where we live. So what does fantasy do for your interior world? I find it's a good place to work things out. It allows you to look at things aslant’, she said in her talk.

Zen also discussed the importance of art and expression in an age of cancel culture, social media and AI, concluding with the words, ‘So that’s my argument for fantasy literature: that it yields freedom to think, to play, to be curious, to explore, to be human. And that’s something that we need more than ever at this point in time. So I did end up making a utilitarian defense of fantasy, despite my best intentions.’

The lecture was followed by a Q and A, prompting far-ranging discussion from the place of contemporary fantasy literature in the Oxford English curriculum, to conversations of representation in the arts, and how Zen combines writing fiction with her career as a lawyer. Afterwards, discussions continued in Pembroke Hall and the MCR where students joined Zen and her guests for dinner and second desert.

A livestream of Zen’s lecture and Q and A is available on the Tolkien Lecture YouTube page. The organisers of the 2025 Tolkien Lecture are immensely grateful for the support of the Pembroke Pink Grant Scheme, the Kadas Family Foundation and the Pembroke Events, Communications and Catering teams in helping to make this year’s talk happen. For further information about the lecture series, please visit tolkienlecture.org.