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The Silence of the Girls  By  cover art

The Silence of the Girls

By: Pat Barker
Narrated by: Kristin Atherton, Michael Fox
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Publisher's summary

Shortlisted for the Costa Best Novel Award 2018

Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker, read by Kristin Atherton and Michael Fox.

From the Booker Prize-winning author of Regeneration and one of our greatest contemporary writers on war comes a reimagining of the most famous conflict in literature - the legendary Trojan War.

The great city of Troy is under siege as Greek heroes Achilles and Agamemnon wage bloody war over a stolen woman. In the Greek camp, another woman is watching and waiting: Briseis. She was a queen of this land until Achilles sacked her city and murdered her husband and sons. Now she is Achilles' concubine: a prize of battle.

Briseis is just one among thousands of women backstage in this war - the slaves and prostitutes, the nurses, the women who lay out the dead - all of them voiceless in history. But, though no one knows it yet, they are just 10 weeks away from the death of Achilles and the fall of Troy, an end to this long and bitter conflict. Briseis will see it all - and she will bear witness.

©2018 Pat Barker (P)2018 Penguin Audio

What listeners say about The Silence of the Girls

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Beautiful story

loved it the story. Narrator was very good!!
Hercules is always a sad story that doesn't get old

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fantastic

Beautifully written. I've loved Pat Barker since 'Renegeration.' This was superlative fiction, transported to something so layered and complex yet so accessible and honest, especially relevant as the feminist perspective was so overdue, but in the hands of this author and these captivating narrators it was a masterpiece.

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Epic

What masterful storytelling - both from the author and narrator. I had chills! History told with such insight into the personal experience of real people - not just heroes.

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Silent girls

Based on Homers the Iliad with interesting story line however the narration let this down as an audio book as British accents of cockney or midlands poor whatever some slave girls were meant to be depicted as fell flat for me when the overall setting is Ancient Greece. This was unfortunate as Pat Barker is a brilliant author

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Brutally beautiful and eye-opening

Wonderful performances of a brutally beautiful and eye-opening story. I could not stop listening. Just wonderful writing.

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  • CJ
  • 01-27-20

A worthy listen!

A very worthy listen - told from the female perspective. Men make war and the women and children of the conquered suffer the consequences - brutal slavery, where you become a dehumanized THING and/or brutal death. This is very intense and disturbing, but well done.

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