Clytemnestra: The spellbinding retelling of Greek mythology’s greatest heroine

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Costanza Casati contributes a mesmerizing addition to this trend in her debut novel, Clytemnestra( Sourcebooks), which recounts a breathtaking story of love and vengeance through the eyes of ancient Greece’s most notorious heroine. I am the type of reader who looks up everybody in this thrilling story and, I couldn't find a record of her first husband and infant son being in her life. She graduated from UNC Asheville with bachelor’s degrees in Creative Writing and Mass Communication. Costanza Casati’s debut novel is a creative retelling of the life of Clytemnestra, a classical heroine of Greek mythology.

From just the small bits and pieces of the character I’d read before, I knew she was someone I connected with and wanted to know more about, and this look into her mind was just flawlessly executed. The Greeks were early masters of stories about betrayal and vengeance, about family feuds and curses, about men who conquered and women who suffered.Costanza Casati was born in Texas in 1995 and grew up in a village in Northern Italy, where she studied Ancient Greek, and Ancient Greek literature, under one of the country’s most rigorous academic programmes.

I loved seeing her as a ferociously devoted sister and mother, a woman who cared about women and was willing to be seen as a villain. This is definitely a Greek mythology retelling I'll be holding up as a new favourite within the genre. Not much character development occurs off the page, making it feel as if the characters simply aged for the sake of the plot. Through Casati’s deft exploration, Queen Clytemnestra is reinstated as an actual human being — one who is grieving, has suffered immensely, craves justice, and refuses to become a pawn in a game ruled by gods and men.Bouts were brutal, sometimes delivering broken bones or even death, but always, at the very least, resulting in bruises and blood spilt. The 2017 novel House of Names by Colm Tóibín is a retelling of the Oresteia, with divine elements largely removed. Complex characters, stylish writing and a glimpse into the heart of one of history's most reviled women – Casati's Clytemnestra is a self-determined warrior queen. It’s a sorrowful tale of orphans struggling to survive in a grim new land, following their journey from an immigrant camp to council housing and finding work.