When a daughter is born to the King of Arcadia, she brings only disappointment.
Left exposed on a mountainside, the defenceless infant Atalanta is left to the mercy of a passing mother bear and raised alongside the cubs under the protective eye of the goddess Artemis.
Swearing that she will prove her worth alongside the famed heroes of Greece, Atalanta leaves her forest to join Jason’s band of Argonauts. But can she carve out her own place in the legends in a world made for men?
Atalanta is the mesmerising story of the only female Argonaut, told by Jennifer Saint, Sunday Times bestselling author of Elektra and Ariadne. Once again, Saint proves the enduring pertinence of Ancient Greek mythology, with another retelling that is at once timeless and contemporary. These stories are as close to universal as they come.
Atalanta struggles to reconcile her ‘feminine’ identity with ‘masculine’ aspirations – and all the societal expectations, constraints and barriers that come tangled up with those elements.
While the original Greek myth depicts Atalanta as a remarkable woman proving her capacity amongst men, Saint’s retelling is so much more than that. She adds layers of nuance that delve into ongoing experiences of womanhood, exploring sexuality, motherhood, sisterhood, and what it means to have – or to be denied – the power of choice.
Atalanta is an epic journey about a woman’s courage, strength and defiance. Told from Atalanta’s own first-person perspective, the unapologetic female gaze wrests this remarkable narrative from its male-dominated history. Like in her previous novels, Saint peels back the layers of history and mythology to first locate and then populate the gaps where a woman’s voice should be.
Just as importantly, alongside all these thought-provoking thematic explorations, Atalanta is an incredibly engaging read. It captures what Greek Mythology is, at its heart, all about: breathtaking, spellbinding, time-bending entertainment. Every page is filled with magic, cruelty, impossible choices, remarkable feats of wit and endurance, and love and tenderness hidden in unexpected places. Atalanta’s is a journey of a lifetime, and we readers are there with her every step of the way.
This empowering book will of course delight Saint’s existing fans, readers of Madeline Miller, and lovers of Greek Mythology. But I would also recommend it to anyone grappling with societal expectations and finding their place in the world – I think we could all use some of Atalanta’s brave conviction at times.
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