What happens when a young prince falls in battle and his body is spirited away to be desecrated and dishonoured?His death is the battle price of another young man's death, but what price dishonour and a father's grief?

In this exquisite gem of a novel, David Malouf shines new light on Homer's Iliad, adding twists and reflections, as well as flashes of earthy humour, to surprise and enchant. His version opens with Achilles, maddened by grief at the death of his friend Patroclus. From the walls of Troy, King Priam watches the body of his son Hector being dragged behind Achilles' chariot. There must be a way, he thinks, of reclaiming the body - of pitting compromise against heroics, new ways against the old, and of forcing the hand of fate.Dressed simply and in a cart pulled by a mule, an old man sets off for the Greek camp...

Lyrical, immediate and heartbreaking, Malouf's fable engraves the epic themes of the Trojan war onto a perfect miniature - themes of war and heroics, hubris and humanity, chance and fate, the bonds between soldiers, fathers and sons, all newly burnished and brilliantly recast for our times.

David Malouf is the internationally acclaimed author of novels including The Great World (winner of the Commonwealth Writers' prize and the Prix Femina Etranger), Remembering Babylon (shortlisted for the Booker Prize and winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), An Imaginary Life, Conversations at Curlow Creek and his autobiographical classic 12 Edmondstone Street. His Collected Stories won the 2008 Australia-Asia Literary Award, and his story collections are Dream Stuff and Every Move You Make where met with critical acclaim. In 2008 Malouf was the Scottish Arts' Council Muriel Spark International Fellow. Born in 1934 in Brisbane, he now lives in Sydney.

'A wonderful retelling of the encounter between Achilles and the Trojan King Priam in prose that's so good you want to eat it' Mariella Frostrup, Observer

'Lyrical, witty, gentle' Independent

In this exquisite gem of a novel, David Malouf shines new light on Homer's Iliad, adding twists and reflections, as well as flashes of earthy humour, to surprise and enchant. Lyrical, immediate and heartbreaking, Malouf's fable engraves the epic themes of the Trojan war onto a perfect miniature - themes of war and heroics, chance and fate, the bonds between soldiers, fathers and sons, all brilliantly recast for our times.

'David Malouf writes with the voice of a poet; his graceful fiction deals in truth and is always beautiful... This is a book that will engage and inspire... In writing this novel Malouf is honouring a great work and also making it his own' Irish Times

'A rich, moving and sometimes disturbing novel' Scotsman

'In bringing something radically new, yet sensitively overlaid, to an already powerful epic, Malouf proves that an "untold tale" can be every bit as rewarding as its ancient original' Philip Parker, Financial Times