9781039001534_

From the author of the international bestseller Life of Pi, a brilliant retelling of the Trojan War from two commoners: an ancient soldier and modern scholar.

Homers Iliad and Odyssey were not the only ancient tales of the Trojan Warthere were others, now vanished but for echoes and fragments, in what is known as the Epic Cycle. In Son of Nobody, Yann Martel imagines one such tale, the Psoad, an epic that follows a goatherds son, Psoas of Midea, who leaves his wife and family to fight at Troy. Psoas meets his doom, and the poem of his life is lostuntil a Canadian academic studying at Oxford, Harlow Donne, discovers its relics thirty centuries later. As Donne assembles and comments on the fragments in footnotes, he retrieves memories of his wife and daughter, and grapples with questions of ambition, family, and responsibility in both the ancient and modern worlds. Son of Nobody upends the regal perspective of traditional epics and shows that the past is never done with, that always there are parallels and returns and repetitions, always the song continues.

...(*_*)9781039001534_

From the author of the international bestseller Life of Pi, a brilliant retelling of the Trojan War from two commoners: an ancient soldier and modern scholar.

The past is never done with: always the song continues

Harlow Donne has devoted his life to the Classical world. When a chance comes up to study an obscure collection of papyrus fragments at Oxford University, he seizes it. Though it means leaving his daughter and fracturing marriage back home in Canada, this is the kind of career break he desperately needs.

In the depths of the Bodlean Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea, but known to all as son of nobody.

As sole translator and interpreter of The Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter, Helen. Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the two-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasnt frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love, and grief.

In this masterpiece of myth, history, and domesticity, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them, and how we livethen, now, and always.

...(*_*)9781039001534_

From the author of the international bestseller Life of Pi, a brilliant retelling of the Trojan War from two commoners: an ancient soldier and modern scholar.

The past is never done with: always the song continues

In the depths of the Bodleian Library, Harlow discovers a lost account of the Trojan War, a glimpse into the founding of Western civilization itself. He names the epic poem The Psoad, after its protagonist, a Greek commoner identified as Psoas of Midea, but known to all as son of nobody.

In this masterpiece of myth, history, and domesticity, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them, and how we livethen, now, and always.

...(*_*)9781039001534_

**Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by Esquire • Marie Claire • Art+ • The Times • The Guardian • The Observer • The Financial Times • BBC • The Sydney Morning Herald • A Globe and Mail Spring 2026 Read

From the author of the international bestseller Life of Pi, a brilliant retelling of the Trojan War from two commoners: an ancient soldier and modern scholar.**

“The past is never done with: always the song continues”

As sole translator and interpreter of The Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter, Helen. Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the two-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn’t frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love, and grief.

In this masterpiece of myth, history, and domesticity, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them, and how we live—then, now, and always.

n(*_*)9781039001534_

From the author of the international bestseller Life of Pi, a brilliant retelling of the Trojan War from two commoners: an ancient soldier and modern scholar.**

“The past is never done with: always the song continues”

As sole translator and interpreter of The Psoad, Harlow dedicates the poem and its footnotes to his daughter, Helen. Under his gaze, the text unlocks echoes of Ancient Greece into the present day, and a personal message to his beloved child appears. Despite the two-thousand-year gap between the two, a thread hasn’t frayed: the universal song of homesickness and regret, of ambition, love, and grief.

In this masterpiece of myth, history, and domesticity, Son of Nobody explores how stories become facts, the price we pay to share them, and how we live—then, now, and always.

Filtros

Yann Martel