Myths #02: Penelopiad, The

- Blurb -

Text Publishing and Canongate Books, together with twenty-five other great international publishing houses, is proud to announce a new series: The Myths, a major series of retellings of international myths by authors from around the world. The Myths series takes us back to the heart of storytelling itself and the quest for meaning. Myths can be ancient stories but they never grow old. They wait for us and the generations to come to discover there again, to find the meanings they always contained. That's why this series, with its fabulous writers and its constellated publishers, is so exciting -it transports readers to the beginnings of literature, and makes it new once more. Michael Heyward, Publisher, Text Publishing. The'series that began in November with Karen Armstrong's compelling A Short History of Myth continues, with electrifying new works of fiction from two of the world's most loved writers. Booker Award-winner Margaret Atwood, who has reworked the traditional telling of the Odyssey narrative, says: I ve chosen to give the telling of the'story to Penelope and to the twelve hanged maids. The maids form a chanting and singing chorus which focuses on two questions that must pose themselves after any close reading of The Odyssey: what led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to? The'story as told in The Odyssey doesn't hold water; there are too many inconsistencies. I ve always been haunted by the hanged maids; and in The Penelopiad, so is Penelope herself.