Trojan Women
a comic
This new comic-book version of Euripides’ classic The Trojan Women follows the fates of Hekabe, Andromache and Kassandra after Troy has been sacked and all its men killed. Trojan Women is a wildly imaginative collaboration between the visual artist Rosanna Bruno and the poet and classicist Anne Carson. Both wacky and devastating, the book gives a genuine representation of how human beings are affected by warfare. All the characters take the form of animals (except Kassandra, whose mind is in another world). Anne Carson collaborated with artist Bianca Stone on their Sophokles reimagining, Antigonick, published by Bloodaxe in 2012. This new collaboration with Rosanna Bruno couldn’t be more different. Rosanna Bruno is an artist who makes paintings, comics and bad puns. Her first book, The Slanted Life of Emily Dickinson (2017), is a book of cartoons based on the myth of Dickinson’s life. Anne Carson’s “mainstream” poetry books are published in the UK by Jonathan Cape. Her most recent collection Red Doc> won the Griffin Poetry Prize as well as being shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize (as were three earlier Cape collections). Bloodaxe does not have North American rights for this title which is published in the US by New Directions.
ANNE CARSON was born in Canada and teaches ancient Greek for a living. She is author of The Autobiography of Red, The Beauty of the Husband, Decreation, Economy of the Unlost, Eros the Bittersweet, Glass, Irony and God, Grief Lessons, If Not, Winter, Men in the Off Hours, Norma Jean Baker of Troy, Nox, Plainwater and Red Doc>. Antigonick, her translation of Sophokles' play Antigone, was published in 2012 by New Directions (USA) and Bloodaxe Books (UK) in a hardback edition with illustrations by Bianca Stone. Antigonick won the 2012 Criticos Prize for an original work, written in (or translated into) English, inspired by Greece or Greek exploits, culture or history. Her latest book is Trojan Women, a collaboration with Rosanna Bruno in a comic book reimagining of Euripides' tragedy, published in 2021 by New Directions (USA) and Bloodaxe Books (UK). ROSANNA BRUNO is a visual artist and based in New York, where she makes paintings, comics, and – sometimes – a mess. She received a New York Foundation for the Arts grant in 2012. Her paintings have been exhibited internationally, and her cartoons have been published in BOMB magazine and featured in The Daily Beast and The Toast, among other publications. Her first book, The Slanted Life of Emily Dickinson (Andrews McMeel, 2017), is a book of cartoons based on the myth of her life.