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The Silence of the Girls

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The Silence of the Girls

Written by: Pat Barker
Narrated by: Kristin Atherton, Michael Fox
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About this listen

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker, read by Kristin Atherton and Michael Fox.

A GUARDIAN BEST BOOK OF THE 21ST CENTURY

From the Booker Prize-winning author of Regeneration

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Costa Novel Award and the International DUBLIN Literary Award

There was a woman at the heart of the Trojan war whose voice has been silent - till now. Discover the greatest Greek myth of all - retold by the witness that history forgot . . .

'Magnificent. You are in the hands of a writer at the height of her powers' Evening Standard
'Chilling, powerful, audacious' The Times

Briseis was a queen until her city was destroyed. Now she is slave to Achilles, the man who butchered her husband and brothers. Trapped in a world defined by men, can she survive to become the author of her own story?

 Fantasy Fiction Historical Fiction Magic Women's Fiction Science Fiction War Greek Mythology Ancient Greece

What the critics say

A searing twist on The Iliad... Amid the recent slew of rewritings of the great Greek myths and classics, Barker's stands out for its forcefulness of purpose and earthy compassion... Chilling, powerful, audacious
A stunning return to form
Angry, thoughtful, sad, deeply humane and compulsively readable, The Silence of the Girls shows that 36 years after her first novel was published, Barker is a writer at the peak of her powers
Its magnificent final section can't help but make you reflect on the cultural underpinnings of misogyny, the women throughout history who have been told by men to forget their trauma... You are in the hands of a writer at the height of her powers
An assured triumph
An important, powerful, memorable book that invites us to look differently not only at The Iliad but at our own ways of telling stories about the past and the present, and at how anger and hatred play out in our societies
She gives a voice to the voiceless...The Silence of the Girls is a book that will be read in generations to come
An impressive feat of literary revisionism that should be on the Man Booker longlist... This is a story about the very real cost of wars waged by men... Barker makes us re-think history
Giving voice to the voiceless, this is a gripping feat of imagination that succeeds in being relevant today
The most important novel based on The Iliad so far this century
All stars
Most Relevant
The story of Troy as it has never been told. An excellent book wonderfully narrated.

An amazing story from an important perspective.

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I'm not sure I have the temerity to write a 'review' of Pat Barker's work. She is an 'author-heroine' of mine ever since I read her Regeneration trilogy. But this book is so moving and her heroine so strong a woman that I wanted to add my two cents to the accolades accorded to this story. Briseis is a survivor like so many woman, throughout history and in our world today, have been called to be survivors of patriarchy. Women who are treated as chattel and abused without consequences for the abusers. Briseis keeps her dignity and her compassion as she is so treated and yet does not banish the memories of the cruelties done to her in order to adjust to her new circumstances. There is both hope and sadness in her survival--hope because survival always lets us hope for a better world, and there is sadness, because when we look around us, many women still suffer a similar fate. As always, Barker's language and imagery remain vivid, long after the book is finished.

A novel for our times

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I loved this book right from the beginning. The only thing I would change would be the amount of times Pat vividly described smells - all totally unappealing. I understood that it was a foul place after the first few descriptions and would have preferred more information on scenery and character appearances.

Either way, the main character is very like-able and I quite enjoyed how she portrayed the realities of what it would have been like to be a female captive in Agamemon's camp. I'm a lover of any portrayal of the Trojan war and this was especially well done!

If you love Homer and a female perspective

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I highly recommend this book and the audiobook along with it ! it was both fun and sickening to read (in a good way) I read this book after The Song of Achilles and loved the different perspectives of Achilles and Patroclus, and the war of Troy

amazing!

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I couldn't stop listening to this book! Wow. It was so well written. It was intelligent: you can tell this author knows the story of the Iliad and Trojan War backwards and forwards. The prose was so engrossing, so lyrical. The two narrators were both fantastic. I was imagining everything being described, down to smell of salt and feeling of hot sand. It was chilling and brutal in its matter of fact descriptions of the reality of war and sexual slavery and how we like to put a palatable sheen on HIStory. This book feels like a voice in the wilderness crying out to be heard. It's an ancient story but it reflects our modern times so eerily. The narrative choice to give Briseis an active first person narration and the male characters third person, more passive voice was brilliant. This is not their story, that one has been told before a thousand times. This one belongs to the girls, to the women forgotten in the sands of time.

A Must-Listen!

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