The Children of Jocasta

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Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. She has written and presented two series of the BBC Radio 4 show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics. In 2015, she was awarded the Classical Association Prize for her work in bringing Classics to a wider audience. She is the author of The Children of Jocasta and The Amber Fury, which was shortlisted for the Scottish Crime Book of the Year award, and a non-fiction book about Ancient History, The Ancient Guide to Modern Life. Her third novel, A Thousand Ships, was shortlisted for the Women's Prize 2020.

From Natalie Haynes, the Women's Prize shortlisted author of A Thousand Ships, comes The Children of Jocasta, a retelling of Oedipus and Antigone from the perspectives of the women the myths overlooked. My siblings and I have grown up in a cursed house, children of cursed parents . . . Jocasta is just fifteen when she is told that she must marry the King of Thebes, an old man she has never met. Her life has never been her own, and nor will it be, unless she outlives her strange, absent husband. Ismene is the same age when she is attacked in the palace she calls home. Since the day of her parents' tragic deaths a decade earlier, she has always longed to feel safe with the family she still has. But with a single act of violence, all that is about to change. With the turn of these two events, a tragedy is set in motion. But not as you know it. 'Haynes balances a fresh take on the material . . . giving new voice to the often-overlooked but fascinating Jocasta and Ismene.' - Madeline Miller, author of Circe.

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