A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes review – women of the Trojan war
The latest novel to retell Greek epic from the women’s point of view is a panoramic portrait of the true cost of conflictHomer’s Iliad, as Natalie Haynes notes in the afterword to A Thousand Ships, is...
View ArticleChigozie Obioma: ‘I would rush to the library in my lunch break to read the...
The Booker prize nominated novelist on the King James Bible and finding comfort in books about birdsThe book I am currently readingIt’s a new novel by a very promising writer, Amir Ahmadi Arian, called...
View ArticleFrom Aristotle to Angela Davis: the best books about debate
Whether it is a dispute between Agamemnon and Achilles or the colonisers and the colonised in Things Fall Apart, we can all learn techniques of persuasion from literatureAs the campaign for the White...
View Article'Barcelona with rain': Galway promises deluge of culture
Irish city welcomes Atwood and celebrates Homer as 2020 European capital of cultureHomer’s Odyssey is to be read aloud on the wind-battered beaches of Ireland’s west coast to celebrate claims that some...
View ArticleTop 10 books about Europe
From Homer to Camus by way of Brecht, French author Laurent Gaudé picks the books that tell us something important about the continent todayThe European Union is no topic for a novel. It’s not fiction....
View ArticleFrom carnage to a camp beauty contest: the endless allure of Troy
Why has the ravaged fallen city been such an inspiration to artists for millennia? Ahead of an epic show at the British Museum, our writer unravels its extraordinary influenceTroy is a real place. The...
View ArticleHelen of Troy: the Greek epics are not just about war – they’re about women
The women of Homer and Euripides hide in plain sight, in the cause and consequences of conflict, as a new British Museum exhibition showsOf all the characters who appear in the Trojan war, all the men...
View ArticleJasper Griffin obituary
Influential Oxford classicist who brought new insights to the study of the Iliad and the OdysseyThe classicist Jasper Griffin, who has died aged 82 of pneumonia, is best known for his work on the Iliad...
View ArticleTop 10 books about toxic masculinity
The term may be new, but as stories from Homer to Henry James show, the behaviour is anything butToxic masculinity has become something of a buzz phrase, employed to describe and explain everything...
View ArticleTop 10 books about the human cost of war | Maaza Mengiste
The novelist explains how literature illuminates soldiers’ experience, and how it helped her depict the women who fought Mussolini in EthiopiaGrowing up with the stories of the Italian invasion of...
View ArticleTop 10 mentors in fiction
From Homer to Hilary Mantel, these inspiring, sometimes ambiguous figures are a perennial flint-spark for storytellingFrom Lord of the Rings and Star Wars to Harry Potter and 50 Shades of Grey, the...
View ArticleGot 150 hours? Great audiobooks to listen to on lockdown
From Ian McKellen reading Homer to Bill Bryson on the body, these audiobooks can expand your horizons, even when you can’t go outA coronavirus cultural survival kitSee all our coronavirus coverageFor...
View ArticleNew Movement Collective review – eerie journeys into Auster and Homer
Available onlineThere are striking moments in the films of this dance group’s performances, inspired by New York Trilogy and The Odyssey • Hottest front-room seats: the best theatre and dance to watch...
View ArticleTop 10 verse novels | Sarah Crossan
From Homer’s classical epic to Kae Tempest’s mythic struggles in modern London, these books show that poetry can be more immediate than proseVerse novels have been with us for millennia, yet when you...
View ArticleWoven into the fabric of life – the Greek myths as tapestries
From Medea to Helen of Troy, Greek myths still speak to the modern world. Classicist Charlotte Higgins explores stories that weave together the fabric of our existenceAmong my most treasured books as a...
View ArticleThe Guardian view on a hidden history of poetry: it depends where you look |...
An ancient Greek graffito points to an overlooked culture of popular verse Think of ancient Greek verse and what often springs to mind are those great beacons of literary achievement, the epics of...
View ArticleRutland’s Roman mosaics bring the Trojan Wars to life in the East Midlands
Recently discovered scenes from Homer’s Iliad show how the influence of the epic poem spread far and wideArchaeologists always hope for a mosaic. Roman-British sites have yielded some remarkable...
View ArticleI lost my underwear on the trail of Odysseus in Ithaca, Greece
Research for a new guide book meant climbing a rock face on the Greek island crucial in Homer’s story, then crawling through spiky undergrowth. An epic in itselfI’m usually not picky about what I wear...
View ArticleNational Theatre to stage The Odyssey in ‘epic’ retelling around England
Parts to be staged in Stoke, Doncaster, Trowbridge and Sunderland in 2023 using local writers and amateur casts before finale in LondonA retelling of The Odyssey, Homer’s epic story of endurance and...
View ArticlePhilologist Irene Vallejo: ‘Alexander the Great’s library was the first step...
The Spanish writer on how Papyrus, her bestselling history of literature in the ancient world, changed her life at a difficult moment, and why it’s a mistake to undervalue booksBorn in 1979, Irene...
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