![]() ![]() And so this is where my research began – with these two anti-heroines, as the ancients might have viewed them, and the desire to understand the world they might have inhabited. ![]() ![]() Prickled by these injustices, I decided to take two such figures, the infamous Helen of Troy and her sister Klytemnestra, and retell their stories in full, to give a window into their experience, to humanise and vindicate them. And what is more the women, both historical and mythological, who railed against this powerlessness to seize some agency of their own were often vilified in the stories told about them. The ancient world was for many a dangerous and powerless place, and not least for women. But as well as sparking delight and curiosity, I was also confronted with worlds that were unfair, unequal, and quite often unsettling.Īs is common for students of the past, I have often wondered what it would be like to live there, while in the same instant knowing I would not want to. I found myself endlessly fascinated with discovering the ways in which people had lived, the values they had held, the stories they had told. Having always been drawn to myths and legends, I had first embarked upon a BA in Classical Civilisation at the University of Warwick, and fell so much in love with the subject that I stayed on to complete a master’s degree in Ancient Visual and Material Culture. The idea for my debut novel, Daughters of Sparta, came to me while I was studying the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome at university. ![]()
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