The Silence of the Girls

Description

From the Booker Prize-winning author of the Regeneration trilogy comes a brave and masterful retelling of The Iliad, as experienced by the captured women living in the Greek camp in the final weeks of the Trojan War.

Shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award – Finalist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction

One of the Best Books of the Year: NPR, The Washington Post, The Economist, Financial Times

Here is the story of the Iliad as we’ve never heard it before: in the words of Briseis, Trojan queen and captive of Achilles. Given only a few words in Homer’s epic and largely erased by history, she is nonetheless a pivotal figure in the Trojan War. In these pages she comes fully to life: wry, watchful, forging connections among her fellow female prisoners even as she is caught between Greece’s two most powerful warriors. Her story pulls back the veil on the thousands of women who lived behind the scenes of the Greek army camp–concubines, nurses, prostitutes, the women who lay out the dead–as gods and mortals spar, and as a legendary war hurtles toward its inevitable conclusion. Brilliantly written, filled with moments of terror and beauty, The Silence of the Girls gives voice to an extraordinary woman–and makes an ancient story new again.
Binding Type: Paperback
Author: Pat Barker
Published: 08/27/2019
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 9780525564102
Pages: 304
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 0.80″ H x 7.90″ L x 5.20″ W

About the Author
Pat Barker is the author of Union Street, Blow Your House Down, Liza’s England, The Man Who Wasn’t There, the Regeneration trilogy (Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, and The Ghost Road, which won the Booker Prize), Another World, Border Crossing, Double Vision, and the Life Class trilogy (Life Class, Toby’s Room, and Noonday). She lives in Durham, England.