How Writers Revise the World

Works of fiction don’t always appear out of thin air. Sometimes writers draw from older stories—myths, histories, ancient epics—when crafting new ones. One might find in that rewriting an opportunity to recast a celebrated figure as a villain, as in Daisy Lafarge’s novel, , which “uses the thoroughly contemporary story of a traumatized graduate on her European gap year to boldly reinterpret Gauguin’s life and legacy,” according to Ella Fox-Martens, and forces us to ask . Or one, the novelist imagines the Trojan War from the perspective of Briseis, a minor female character in the who is taken as a slave by Achilles. In doing so, she highlights “,” as Sophie Gilbert writes, and prompts readers to wonder, “How many stories like this one remain to be told?”