The women of Troy
by Pat Barker
THE TROJAN WAR WAS ALWAYS THE WOMEN’S WAR.
Helena and her unmatched beauty, which turned out to be just a bone that mad dogs fight over; Cassandra, whose prophecies no one pays attention to unless a man enunciates them; the stubborn Amina, with her gaze fixed on the ruins, determined to avenge the death of her king; Hecuba howling in pain on the silent shore, as if his cries could reach the halls of Hades and awaken the dead; and Briseis, who carries in her womb the son of the fallen hero… Oh, the women of Troy, trapped again in the blind struggle of men!
A masterful look from the perspective of non-combatants; A memorable and powerful novel about the greatest of Greek myths by the author of The Silence of Women.
Troy has fallen. The Greeks have won their bitter war. Now they just need a good wind to raise their sails and return home victorious. But the vengeful gods keep the sea against them, so the warriors remain in limbo, camped in the shadow of the city they destroyed, accompanied by the women they kidnapped.
«In the Iliad, that ode to the destruction caused by male aggression, women are the object through which men fight each other to assert their status. The goddesses always have something to say, but the mortals usually remain silent and if they speak it is only to lament: for the fall of Troy, for their dead children, fathers and husbands, and for their own freedom, taken by force both by the victors as well as the vanquished. Guardian
Pat Barker (Thornaby-on-Tees, England, 1943) began writing in 1982 after taking part in a workshop given by the distinguished novelist Angela Carter. Since then she has published fifteen novels – including her famous trilogy on the First World War – which have made her one of the leading figures in contemporary British fiction. Her work, translated into several languages, has won numerous awards, including the Booker Prize in 1995.
Source: https://algunoslibrosbuenos.com/las-mujeres-de-troya
