When men make war, it is women who suffer. Trojan Women is a gripping re-imaging of one of the greatest stories in western literature, the epic clash of cultures we call the Trojan War. As Homer tells it in the Iliad, men fight, suffer, and die. There men tell the tale. But the Trojan women, whose lives are at the center of Homer's tale, and who are the prizes to be won, are silent. Trojan Women gives these women a voice. In the novel six legendary women a voice: Chryseis, captured and taken as a slave to the bed of Agamemnon, bravely and resourcefully confronts the horrors of war and the brutality of men. Captured with her and saved from death by her, Briseis stands with Chryseis when death threatens them. Slaves and playthings of the Greeks, the two women are at the moral and emotional center of the drama and tell a story that even Homer never knew. From within the besieged city of Troy, Queen Hecabe, and her daughters Andromache and Kassandra, look from the walls at the vast Greek army camped below, and bravely face the terrors that confront them: for Hecabe the loss of a crown and kingdom, for Andromache the loss of husband and child, for Kassandra the loss of sanity itself. Once desired and now despised, Helen, the prize over whom Greeks and Trojans fight, has lost everything and now can only wait to learn if she will live or die. Trojan Women renews for our times an epic story, yet one also intimate and passionate that remains, after two thousand years, perhaps the greatest story ever told. Trojan Women is a revised excerpt from the longer novel Ilios, a reimagining of the Trojan War.
Description:
When men make war, it is women who suffer. Trojan Women is a gripping re-imaging of one of the greatest stories in western literature, the epic clash of cultures we call the Trojan War. As Homer tells it in the Iliad, men fight, suffer, and die. There men tell the tale. But the Trojan women, whose lives are at the center of Homer's tale, and who are the prizes to be won, are silent. Trojan Women gives these women a voice. In the novel six legendary women a voice: Chryseis, captured and taken as a slave to the bed of Agamemnon, bravely and resourcefully confronts the horrors of war and the brutality of men. Captured with her and saved from death by her, Briseis stands with Chryseis when death threatens them. Slaves and playthings of the Greeks, the two women are at the moral and emotional center of the drama and tell a story that even Homer never knew. From within the besieged city of Troy, Queen Hecabe, and her daughters Andromache and Kassandra, look from the walls at the vast Greek army camped below, and bravely face the terrors that confront them: for Hecabe the loss of a crown and kingdom, for Andromache the loss of husband and child, for Kassandra the loss of sanity itself. Once desired and now despised, Helen, the prize over whom Greeks and Trojans fight, has lost everything and now can only wait to learn if she will live or die. Trojan Women renews for our times an epic story, yet one also intimate and passionate that remains, after two thousand years, perhaps the greatest story ever told. Trojan Women is a revised excerpt from the longer novel Ilios, a reimagining of the Trojan War.