A darkly brilliant first novel imagines a missing chapter in the life of Ovid. Why was Ovid, the most popular author of his day, banished to the edges of the Roman Empire? Why do only two lines survive of his play Medea, reputedly his most passionate work, and perhaps his most accomplished? Between the known details of the poets life and these enigmas, Jane Alison has interpolated a haunting drama of passion and psychological manipulation. On holiday in the Black Sea, on the fringes of the Empire, Ovid encounters an almost otherwordly woman who seems to embody the fictitious creations of his soon-to-be-published Metamorphoses. Part Healer, part witch, she seems myth come to life. Enchanted and obsessed - and, for the first time in a long while, flush with inspiration - Ovid takes her back with him to Rome. But the inexorable pull of ambition leads him to make a Faustian bargain with fate that will betray his newfound muse. As the two of them become entangled in its snares, the reader is drawn deep into an ingeniously enacted meditation on love, art, and the desire for immortality.
- ISBN10 0312420064
- ISBN13 9780312420062
- Publish Date 15 September 2002 (first published 31 March 2001)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 27 November 2011
- Publish Country AU
- Publisher Pan Macmillan Australia
- Imprint Picador Australia
- Format Paperback
- Pages 256
- Language English