Fertile tradition of retelling epic poems of Homer is revived

With these novels, Pat Barker and Michael Hughes revive the long and fertile tradition of retelling Homer’s great epic poems. The Silence of The Girls and Country deliver new and original recitations of ‘The Iliad’ — the final weeks of the Trojan War — in two different but very satisfying and successful ways.

Barker tells the story of the stand-off between the Greek commander, Agamemnon, and his greatest warrior, Achilles, from the point of view of Briseis — the Trojan queen who was granted to Achilles by the army as a ‘prize’, then claimed by Agamemnon in recompense for the loss of another woman slave, Chryseis.