NPR’s Here & Now celebrates the work as “so vivid, so layered, you could get lost in it… Whether or not you think you like Greek mythology, this is just great storytelling.” A retelling of the Odyssey, Circe tells the story of minor goddess Circe, who was banished from her Titan father’s house to a deserted island where she unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods.

Her 2018 novel, Circe, was also critically acclaimed and a fixture on the New York Times best seller list that year. Joanna Trollope, chair of the Orange Prize judges, commented, “This is a more than worthy winner – original, passionate, inventive, and uplifting. A new rendering of the Trojan War, this homage to the Iliad follows Patroclus, a young exiled prince, living in the shadow of King Peleus and his golden son, Achilles. Her first novel, The Song of Achilles, was awarded the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction and was a New York Times best seller. As early as her teenage years, she says, “I knew I wanted to write-though I would never have dared to hope I could actually be a writer.” She credits her love of writing and books to her mother, who would spend hours reading aloud to her and supporting her writing practice. Though her early interest in reading and studying Classics cannot be understated, Miller also knew from a young age that she wanted to be a writer. Miller attended Brown University, where she studied Classics and received Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. When Miller was in high school, her family moved to Philadelphia, where she began to learn both Latin and Homeric Greek languages. But the emotions, the striving, the grief. She was instantly hooked, remembering: “I thought, ‘Wow, this is what real life is like,’ That might sound funny, given that the story is full of gods. Miller was five years old when her mother, who was a librarian, first read to her from the Iliad. Madeline Miller was born in Boston and spent her early years in New York City, where her mother would regularly take her to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the Egyptian, Ancient Greek, and Roman exhibits. Interested in more? Below is a bio of Madeline Miller’s life and writing career thus far.

“Discipline is important, but so is taking a breath and looking around, and giving things a chance to germinate.” “It takes me a long time going down, and a long time returning to air, and I have significant fallow periods in between,” she added. Read more of Miller’s reflections on being a writer in this interview with PBS NewsHour. For her, writing is “like descending to the bottom of the ocean.” It took Madeline Miller ten years to write The Song of Achilles and six to write Circe.

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