"Why was Ovid, the most popular author of his day, banished to the
edge of the Roman Empire? Why do only two lines survive of his play
Medea, reputedly his most passionate work and perhaps his most
accomplished? Between the known details of the poet's life and these
enigmas, Jane Alison has interpolated a haunting drama of passion and
psychological manipulation." "On holiday by the Black Sea, on the
fringes of the Empire, Ovid encounters an almost otherworldly woman
who seems to embody the fictitious creations of his
soon-to-be-published Metamorphoses. Part healer, part witch, Xenia
seems myth come to life. Ovid is enchanted and obsessed - and, for
the first time in a long while, flush with inspiration. Xenia will be
the model for his masterpiece. But this time, his subject will be a
dark one." "When autumn comes, Ovid decides to take her back with him
to Rome. Gradually, however, art becomes life, and the inexorable
pull of ambition leads Ovid to make a Faustian bargain that will
betray his newfound muse and catapult them both toward a reversal he
never plotted. As the two of them become ensnared, the reader is
drawn deep into an imaginatively enacted meditation on love, genius,
and the quest for immortality."--BOOK JACKET.
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