Achilles

by Elizabeth Cook

This powerful, passionate, and beautifully crafted retelling of the epic tale of Achilles re-creates Homer's fated hero in a new and striking reality. Born of the Sea nymph Thetis by the mortal King Peleus, and hidden as a girl until Odysseus discovers him, Achilles becomes the Greeks' greatestr warrior at Troy. Into his story comes a cast of fascinating characters—among them, Hector, Helen, Penthiseleia the Amazon Queen, and the centaur Chiron; and finally John Keats, whose writings form the basis of a meditation on the nature of identity and shared experience.

An forgettable and deeply moving work of fiction, Achilles is also an affirmation of the story's enduring power to reach across centuries and cultures to the core of our imagination.

Genres: Mythology, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Fantasy, Poetry, Retellings, Historical

128 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 2001

About the author

Elizabeth Cook was born in Gibraltar in 1952, spent her childhood in Nigeria and Dorset, and now lives in East London. She is the editor of the Oxford Authors John Keats and author of Achilles (Methuen and Picador USA), a work of fiction acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic. Her poetry, short fiction and critical reviews have appeared in many journals including Agenda, The London Review of Books, Poetry London, Stand and Tears in the Fence. She was a Hawthornden fellow in 2003