Charlotte Higgins (Author)
Charlotte Higgins's previous books include the acclaimed Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain, which was shortlisted for awards including the Samuel Johnson (now Baillie Gifford) Prize for non-fiction, and Red Thread, which was a Radio 4 Book of the Week and won the Arnold Bennett Prize 2019. She is chief culture writer of the Guardian, a past winner of the Classical Association prize, and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. She lives in London.
Chris Ofili (Illustrator)
Chris Ofili is a British artist. He lives and works in Trinidad.
Higgins is
a wonderful scholar, and a great story teller. I've been loving these retellings, cleverly centered around the theme of myths told in tapestry.[Higgins] leads us through the labyrinth of interconnected stories in a startlingly fresh way. It throws radiant new light on their meanings...
This excellent book should delight many generations of story lovers to come.[An]
erudite and exhilarating collection... luminous, astute retellings.[A]
scholarly, capacious reimagining... Higgins makes you feel for these tormented, accursed mortals afresh.
We are in the hands of a fine, fluent storyteller... Higgins, like the bards who first unspooled these tales, creates the illusion of spontaneity and handles suspense brilliantly... Chris Ofili's drawings complement the lyricism of the prose descriptions. Higgins depicts art mediating life - the reason, I think, that we read books...
I loved this book.'A great storyteller' Madeline Miller, author of Circe
In this powerful new collection, Charlotte Higgins foregrounds Greek mythology's most enduring heroines.
Here are the myths of Heracles and Theseus, the Trojan war, Thebes and Argos and Athens. They are stories of love and desire, adventure and magic, destructive gods, helpless humans, fantastical creatures and resourceful witches.
In this telling the female characters take centre stage as Athena, Helen, Circe, Penelope and others weave these stories into elaborate imagined tapestries. In Charlotte Higgins's thrilling new interpretation of these ancient stories, their tales combine to form a dazzling, sweeping epic of storytelling.
With a series of original drawings by Chris Ofili.
