Forthcoming Book: Gods and Mortals:

Ancient Greek Myths for Modern Readers

In Gods and Mortals: Ancient Greek Myths for Modern Readers, Sarah Iles Johnston offers an entrancing new narration of ancient Greek myths that is both true to the stories as the Greeks told them and invitingly contemporary in language and imagery.  The pantheon of characters—the gods, the heroes, the ordinary mortals, the monsters—and their shifting relationships with one another are revealed in all their intriguing complexity.  

In 140 short chapters, Gods and Mortals covers all of the best-known Greek myths as well as some that have seldom been presented in English.  The arc of Johnston’s story begins with the creation of the cosmos from nothingness and ends with the return of Odysseus from the Trojan War.  

In between, Johnston offers stories about Demeter, who starved the world until her kidnapped daughter returned from the land of the dead; Hermes, who stole his brother Apollo’s cattle to win his place in the family of the gods; Penelope, who used her intelligence and skill as a weaver to outwit 108 men; Orpheus, whose music made the trees dance and conquered the Sirens; and many more.  Clear, elegant and evocative, the narrations draw on the ancient authors to capture what the Greeks themselves heard in these myths as well as what they can mean to us today.  

A glossary of names, bibliographic notes, and discussions of how and why the Greeks themselves narrated myths complete the book.  Twenty original illustrations and three maps are included.  For adults and young adults.

Forthcoming from Princeton University Press in 2022.