The writer and broadcaster Natalie Haynes combines a love of classical history and myth, with a background in teaching and stand-up.

In her first novel, The Amber Fury, a grief-stricken teacher turns to Greek tragedies and finds that the tales of fate, family and vengeance speak directly to her pupils. The Children of Jocasta followed, a re-imagining of the Oedipus myth; while Natalie’s most recent book, A Thousand Ships, re-tells the story of the Trojan War from the perspective of women (both mortal and immortal).

In this book Natalie highlights “the pain of the women who have always been relegated to the edges of the story, victims of men, survivors of men, slaves of men.” Natalie draws on two of the world’s oldest poems, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, imagining Penelope’s fidelity to her questing husband, stretched to its very limits, in a series of letters.

We re-visit a previous incarnation of Odysseus’ wife, in The Two Penelopes, a story commissioned by Writing West Midlands, which first broadcast on Radio 4 in 2014. In this short tale, Natalie sneaks in references to Homer’s epic poem, while imagining a latter day Penelope, knitting to while away the hours in a Birmingham care home.

Natalie also talks about standing up for the classics in her titular Radio 4 series. In the upcoming fifth series, she will turn once again to the foundational poems of Homer, with an impressively concise re-telling of The Iliad. All 24 books, recorded live at the BBC Radio Theatre, in 24 minutes.

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