“When I was born, the name for what I was did not exist.”
That’s how Circe starts telling her own story, in Madeline Miller’s novel (2018). Yes, that Circe: the witch who turns Odysseus’ crew into pigs in book 10 of The Odyssey, a few pages of someone else’s epic. Miller gives her the whole book.
The unpromising daughter of the sun god Helios, banished to the island of Aiaia, who discovers witchcraft there and, over centuries, crosses paths with Daedalus, the Minotaur, Medea and, eventually, Odysseus and his family. Myth seen from the margin, by the woman the heroes only visit.
It was a number one New York Times bestseller and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019, plus a pile of other prizes. Same author, same trick, earlier: The Song of Achilles.