The best books based on myths beyond the Greco-Roman Canon

As a writer of feminist myths, Kartika Nair’s exquisite poetic retelling of the Mahabharata from the women’s perspective felt like it was written for me. The title is from the African writer Chinua Achebe’s words, "Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter." Using formal poetry, free verse, and prose, Nair has created a palimpsest of the great Indian epic of kingship and warring dynasties which is several times the length of The Iliad and The Odyssey combined. Here the mothers, wives, sisters, and lovers of the protagonists tell their stories, providing a counterpoint to the much-quoted verse from the epic: "All that is found here can be found elsewhere, but what is not here can be found nowhere."

I adored The Half God of Rainfall’s daring: a new free-verse epic crafted from ancient Yoruba and Greek mythology by Inua Ellams, a poet and playwright, who has also adapted it for theatre. It tells the story of Demi, the son of Modúpé, a mortal woman and the Greek god Zeus. Ellams does not shy away from Zeus’s canonical role as a violent sexual predator and the tale of Demi’s rise and fall as a basketball player, half god, and half mortal culminates in the overthrowing of the patriarchy. Demi’s mother Modúpé, with the aid of the Òrìsà (Yoruban Gods) and other women wronged by him – Leda, Danaë, Europa, Antiope – takes her revenge on the great Zeus himself. 

I saved The Mermaid of Black Conch to read until after I had finished writing my book and it was worth the wait. Monique Roffey’s novel tells of the romance between a fisherman on the fictional island of Black Conch and Aycayia, a magical sea-woman from the ancient Taino people, indigenous to the Caribbean. Aycayia is trapped and persecuted, David rescues her and witnesses her miraculous metamorphosis from piscine to human. Histories of colonial and ecological violence are woven in through the characters of the crass American tourists who wish to capture her, and Miss Arcadia Rain, the white Creole landowner who helps David protect Aycayia. The mermaid also speaks in her own lyrical voice, interspersed with David and Miss Rain’s narration. Magical, poetic, and layered, Roffey’s novel is an enchanting repurposing of mermaid mythology.

I adored Cho’s Black Water Sister for the wit, verve, and humour with which its protagonist, Jess, newly returned to Penang from the USA, faces down being possessed by the spirit of her dead grandma, a former medium. Jess, despite her Harvard degree, hasn’t found a job and is unable to tell her conservative family about her Singapore-based girlfriend. How Jess manages to negotiate the contradictory demands of pushy aunties, powerful businessmen, and a furious goddess known as the Black Water Sister, whose temple is threatened by property developers, makes an immersive and absorbing tale.

I absolutely loved this marvellous reworking of the Hindu epic The Ramayana, a familiar tale I heard every Diwali as a child. Kaikeyi takes no less a figure than the villainous stepmother of Prince Rama, who demands his exile, an event that culminates in a battle to overthrow Ravana, the demon king of Lanka. Patel’s reworking takes its cues from the original texts (there are hundreds of different versions) and spins a cleverly complex, nuanced tale of Kaikeyi as a proto-feminist heroine, trapped within a patriarchal system.