'Mary Renault's portraits of the ancient world are fierce, complex
and eloquent, infused at every turn with her life-long passion for
the Classics. Her characters live vividly both in their own time,
and in ours' MADELINE MILLER Mary Renault is a shining light to
both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend
the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece
were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning,
sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she
leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us'
HILARY MANTEL In the story of the great lyric poet Simonides, Mary
Renault brings alive a time in Greece when tyrants kept an unsteady
rule and poetry, music, and royal patronage combined to produce a
flowering of the arts. Born into a stern farming family on the
island of Keos, Simonides escapes his harsh childhood through a
lucky apprenticeship with a renowned Ionian singer. As they travel
through 5th century B.C. Greece, Simonides learns not only how to
play the kithara and compose poetry, but also how to navigate the
shifting alliances surrounding his rich patrons. He is witness to
the Persian invasion of Ionia, to the decadent reign of the Samian
pirate king Polykrates, and to the fall of the Pisistratids in the
Athenian court. Along the way, he encounters artists, statesmen,
athletes, thinkers, and lovers, including the likes of Pythagoras
and Aischylos. Using the singer's unique perspective, Renault
combines her vibrant imagination and her formidable knowledge of
history to establish a sweeping, resilient vision of a golden
century. 'There's much to say about her interweaving of myth and
history and, just as interestingly, there's much to wonder at in
the way she fills in the large dark spaces where we know next to
nothing about the times she describes . . . an important and
wonderful writer . . . she set a course into serious-minded,
psychologically intense historical fiction that today seems more
important than ever' - Sam Jordison, Guardian
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