A Thousand Ships

"In school, we read about the ancient Greeks: the fierce and clever Spartans who vanquished the Trojans. What brilliance to construct a horse – a GIFT – inside which brave warriors hid, waiting to ambush a kingdom and reclaim the beautiful Helen, whose face had launched a thousand ships – and thousands of sentences from mostly male writers ever since. In Natalie Haynes’ own brilliant construction, the 10-year tale of the Trojan War is retold by the many women ignored, widowed, enslaved, heartbroken and snuffed out by the pride and stupidity of warring men. Cassandra, Hecabe, Iphigenia, Penelope: They speak unfiltered. Muses and goddesses give their derisive takes as well. It is a fresh and utterly satisfying feminist take on one of the oldest stories in Western literature."