Natalie Haynes is a writer, broadcaster, and classicist. She was once a stand-up comic, but retired when she realised she preferred tragedy to comedy. She also has a radio series, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, which is available on BBC Sounds and Audible.
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
In A Thousand Ships (2021), Natalie Haynes takes the events of the Trojan War — along with what led to it and what followed — and offers them up in familiar form but a form as viewed/experienced through different eyes: those of the women from both sides who experienced as much if not more of the war’s horrors even if (save for one point-of-view) they didn’t actually fight in it.
Haynes frames her story through the voice of Calliope, who, as an unnamed poet (Homer, one assumes) calls upon her to be his muse, wonders, “How much epic poetry does the world really need ... these stories have all been told, and countless times. Can he really believe he has something new to say?” Regardless, Calliope does engage, though perhaps not as the poet desired: “I’m offering him the story of all the women in the war. Well, most of them.” And in short o... Read More
