Description
Set in 412 BC in Sicily during the Peloponnesian war, Ferdia Lennon’s début novel, Glorious Exploits, explores the bonds forged between local potters, Lampo and Gelon, and a group of Athenian prisoners of war, held captive in a quarry in Syracuse. This boisterous, highly original novel culminates in their staging of Euripides’ tragedy Medea, a performance that they will never forget, as it becomes difficult to distinguish between friends and enemies. ‘It’s poetry we’re doing,’ Gelon says. ‘It wouldn’t mean a thing if it were easy.’Ferdia Lennon will be in conversation with poet and playwright Clare Pollard, whose captivating début novel, Delphi, reads between the lines of ancient prophecies. In London in 2020 during the pandemic, the novel’s sharp, witty narrator, a Classics scholar, is attempting to write a book about prophecy in the ancient world and becomes fixated on forms of divination and prediction. ‘To write anything requires this ludicrous confidence in the future – that it exists, and contains a person who might read my words with interest.’ (Delphi).
Join us for a conversation between these two brilliant writers that will touch on Greek tragedy, myth, war, death and more. It will be chaired by academic and dramaturg, Tanya Dean.
| Period | 1 Feb 2025 |
|---|---|
| Held at | Classics Now, Ireland |
| Degree of Recognition | National |