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The Women of Troy
- A Novel
- Narrated by: Kristin Atherton
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
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The Women of Troy
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Publisher's Summary
A daring and timely feminist retelling of The Iliad from the perspective of the women of Troy who endured it—an extraordinary follow up to The Silence of the Girls from the Booker Prize-winning author of The Regeneration Trilogy and “one of contemporary literature’s most thoughtful and compelling writers" (The Washington Post).
Troy has fallen and the victorious Greeks are eager to return home with the spoils of an endless war—including the women of Troy themselves. They await a fair wind for the Aegean.
It does not come, because the gods are offended. The body of King Priam lies unburied and desecrated, and so the victors remain in suspension, camped in the shadows of the city they destroyed as the coalition that held them together begins to unravel. Old feuds resurface and new suspicions and rivalries begin to fester.
Largely unnoticed by her captors, the one-time Trojan queen Briseis, formerly Achilles' slave, now belonging to his companion Alcimus, quietly takes in these developments. She forges alliances when she can, with Priam's aged wife the defiant Hecuba and with the disgraced soothsayer Calchas, all the while shrewdly seeking her path to revenge.
What the critics say
ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR
"Now the publication of The Women of Troy (Doubleday) brings the author back to the bloodied plains where the Greeks and the Trojans fought—here, once again, a staging ground for the battle between the sexes."—The New Yorker
"[Barker’s] insight and compassion are on full display. As is her outrage."—The New York Times Book Review
"This continuation of the Trojan woman's story feels like another victory for every person who was silenced by history, their story stolen from them."—Refinery29