Natalie Haynes

British classicist, comedian, and author who retells Greek myths from female perspectives, most notably in A Thousand Ships, shortlisted for the Women's Prize.

Natalie Haynes is a British classicist, stand-up comedian, and author who has become one of the most prominent voices in the recent wave of mythological retellings that have transformed literary fiction. With a first-class degree from Cambridge and years of stand-up experience, Haynes brings both rigorous scholarship and sharp wit to her engagement with the ancient Greek world, making her work both authoritative and wonderfully readable.

A Thousand Ships, published in 2019 and shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, retells the story of the Trojan War from the perspectives of the women on both sides: Greeks and Trojans, goddesses and mortals, wives and slaves. By systematically redirecting attention from the heroes to the women who were acted upon by the war’s violence, Haynes illuminates what ancient texts typically ignore or elide. The muse Calliope, who narrates the frame story, serves as a pointed commentary on whose stories get told and why.

Haynes has also written Stone Blind (the story of Medusa), Pandora’s Jar (essays on women in Greek myth), and The Children of Jocasta (Oedipus and Antigone retold). Her BBC Radio 4 series Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics has brought Greek and Roman literature to millions of listeners. For readers who enjoyed Madeline Miller’s Circe or The Song of Achilles, Haynes offers a similarly feminist and scholarly reengagement with the ancient world.