Why Egor loves this book
Set after the disastrous Athenian campaign in Sicily, the novel follows two Syracusan layabouts who roam the stone quarries offering wine and food to Athenian prisoners able to recite Euripides by heart. Their half-drunken idea of staging “Medea” right in the quarries turns into a bittersweet tragicomedy about friendship, humiliation, and the stubborn need for art when everything else has been destroyed. With contemporary, rough language and very human characters, the book finds comedy in horror and then reveals the pain behind the laughter, asking what culture can still do in a world shattered by war.
5 authors picked Glorious Exploits as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE WATERSTONES DEBUT FICTION PRIZE 2024
'One of the most original and brilliant debuts in years' Irish Times
'Bold and totally unexpected ... I was hooked from the first page' Douglas Stuart, author of Shuggie Bain
'Brilliant ... Hilarious, moving, and profound' R. F. Kuang, author of Yellowface
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Ancient Sicily. Enter GELON: visionary, dreamer, theatre lover. Enter LAMPO: lovesick, jobless, in need of a distraction.
Imprisoned in the quarries of Syracuse, thousands of defeated Athenians hang on by the thinnest of threads.
They're fading in the baking heat, but not everything is lost:…
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