Timandra

Timandra is one of the most fascinating female figures of Greek antiquity. A woman of exceptional beauty, she knew how to congregate in her house the best minds of her time, from Socrates to Euripides. But she, above all, transcended for, as the historical sources say, being 'the splendid ether that lived with the hero Alcibiades and collected his ashes'. In this novel by Theodor Kallifatides, considered by its author as perhaps the best of them, it is Timandra who tells us in first person her life and the Athens of her time, in the middle of the Peloponnesian War against Sparta. Figures, places, times, the Athens of the Agora and ports, gymnasiums and battlefields: everything is real. But Timandra is much more than a historical novel. The center of gravity is love: explored, debated, codified -as was customary among the Greeks of the time-, always accepted as a gift and condemnation, between laughter and tears, in a symposium, a mysterious rite, a minute from the death.