The best literary fiction based on Greek myths

Graves develops the characters and plot in this book fictionally, but he believes Homer’s Odyssey was written by a character in the epic, Nausicaa, princess of Sicily, as he argues in his historical note.

It’s a lively and adventurous story, and Graves’ conviction that a woman authored this work attributed to Homer adds to its charm. Later mythic retellings are based on the stories they spring from, but Graves sheds new light on the Odyssey itself through Nausicaa’s point of view.

His nonfiction works, The Greek Myths and The White Goddess, are also brilliant, original approaches to mythology and highly recommended.

Although this is not Mary Renault’s first novel set in Bronze Age Greece, it’s a classic.

She retells the story of Theseus in his own words, but not as a simple hero tale. Set long before the Trojan War, much takes place in Minoan Crete where Theseus performs his first heroic act.

Renault depicts the advanced Minoan culture and Mother Goddess religion intriguingly and gives fresh interpretations, from the character of Theseus himself to the Minotaur in the Labyrinth and what follows.

First read while I was a college student (not for a class), this book inspired me to one day create my own mythic retelling.

It’s a beautifully written story of Achilles and Priam, expanding upon the last book of Homer’s Iliad.

Malouf looks at warfare and heroism from inside the warrior’s complicated reality, with fatherhood woven through. Each relationship is powerful: Achilles and Patroclus, Achilles and Hector, Hector and his parents, Priam and Hecuba, Priam and the carter who transports him to Achilles’ camp with his ransom to exchange for the body of his son Hector, and in the end, Achilles and Priam in heartbreaking intimacy.

This novel arouses profound emotions, often surprising, and the details are vividly imagined. Malouf gives us much to reflect on with his retelling of this archetypal yet very personal tale.

The ‘girls’ are the Trojan women, voiceless in Homer’s Iliad except, briefly, Andromache, Cassandra, and Hecuba.

Women drive the plot, from Helen, the Spartan queen abducted by the Trojan prince Paris, who is blamed for starting it, to Briseis, the Trojan captive Agamemnon takes from Achilles, but they say little.

Most of the chapters in Silence of the Girls are first-person in Briseis’ voice, with interspersed third-person chapters focusing on Achilles and Patroclus. We see the war from a broad, realistic perspective, but the tragedy in the center is of the women—as the Greek playwright Euripides recognizes in his play ‘The Trojan Women’ among others.

Pat Barker gives us the full, moving story in this novel and its sequels, The Women of Troy and The Voyage Home.

Unlike any of the other protagonists in this chronological list, Circe is a goddess—and a unique one. Because of her powers of witchcraft, Zeus exiles her from Mount Olympus, and this novel explores her adventures and emotions on her island of Aiaia and, briefly, in Crete.

The popularity of this book stems in large part from its unique angle not only on Circe but on Greek gods and stories, from Hermes and Daedalus to Jason and Medea—and the most familiar to land on her island: Odysseus on his homeward journey from Troy.

Miller freely draws on varied sources, but to me the most powerful story is in the final chapters, focusing on Telegonus, her son by Odysseus, and Penelope and Telemachus. These originate more in her imagination than any mythic source, yet they ring true.