A Thousand Ships

Raised in the Bournville village in Birmingham, England, Natalie Haynes attended Christ’s College, Cambridge where she studied Classics. Haynes has enjoyed a prolific career in broadcasting, appearing as a panelist on numerous BBC Radio 4 productions including Wordaholics, Banter, and Quote…Unquote. Since 2014, BBC has broadcast Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, in which the author and guest experts discuss the relevance of historical and mythological figures from ancient Greece and Rome. Haynes has also appeared on various BBC television shows, including The Review Show, which covers current developments in arts and culture, and the online revival of Time Team, which follows professional archaeologists on their expeditions. In addition to her work for the BBC, Haynes has been a guest contributor for the British national newspaper The Times since 2006. As a comedian, she has performed stand-up on five national tours and is the only comedian to have appeared at ever Newbury Comedy Festival in its eight years of showcasing comedic talent in the UK. Haynes has written three non-fiction books and four novels, most of which engage with Greek and Roman mythology. A Thousand Ships (2019), a retelling of the Trojan War, was shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her novel No Friend to This House, which reimagines the myth of Medea, will be published in 2026.

The ancient Greek poet Homer is the credited author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems which chronicle the final years of the legendary Trojan War and the travels of the warrior king Odysseus. While academics believe Homer was born around the eighth century BCE in the Greek settlement of Ionia, the events his epics describe date back to the 12th century BCE according to ancient Greek chronology. Despite the existence of numerous literary works describing the Trojan War, modern scholars disagree over whether the war actually took place. By the 19th century, most academics had dismissed Troy as a fable when, in 1873, amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered what he believed to be the ruins of Troy in present-day Hisarlik, Turkey. Since then, some scholars have suggested that Homer’s Iliad and similar myths are fictional amalgamations composed from various conflicts involving the Mycenaean Greeks during the Bronze Age (1750 to 1050 BCE). Additionally, because of the prevalence of divine intervention and mythology in Homer’s Iliad, it is difficult for historians to separate potential fact from myth. The longstanding debate regarding Homer’s identity, authorship, and the historicity of his alleged works is known in classicist circles as the Homeric Question. Despite modern disagreement about the historical basis of the Trojan War, its events and iconography have been artistically depicted on innumerable ancient artifacts, suggesting the war’s tale was at least a widely known legend.

Like A Thousand Ships (2019), Pat Barker’s 2018 novel The Silence of the Girls examines the effects of war on women, focusing on the mythological figure Briseis after she is taken captive by Achilles and the Greek army. The Memoirs of Helen of Troy (2005) by Amanda Elyot reimagines Helen’s legendary tale of beauty, love, and loss. Haynes herself has referenced Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad (2005) as one of her favorite retellings of Greek myths, centering on Penelope—Odysseus’s abandoned wife—and her 12 maids. For readers interested in other marginalized perspectives in Greek myths, Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles (2011) takes a closer look at the warrior Achilles’s intense relationship with Patroclus and the fates both men meet on the battlefield. In a similar vein, Jesse Browner’s recent novel Sing to Me (2025) follows Hani, an 11-year-old boy, in the aftermath of the sack of Troy. For further retellings of Greek goddesses, Jennifer Saint’s Hera (2024) delves deep into the immortal queen’s character and offers her a redemption arc. Finally, readers with a general interest in the relevance of ancient mythology to contemporary times should check out Haynes’s nonfiction book The Ancient Guide to Modern Life (2010), in which the author uses her characteristic wit and humor to expound on classical wisdom.