Fire from Heaven

Renault's skill is in immersing us in their world, drawing us into its strangeness, its violence and beauty . . . a literary conjuring trick . . . so convincing and passionately conjured
Mary Renault is a shining light to both historical novelists and their readers. She does not pretend the past is like the present, or that the people of ancient Greece were just like us. She shows us their strangeness; discerning, sure-footed, challenging our values, piquing our curiosity, she leads us through an alien landscape that moves and delights us
The Alexander Trilogy contains some of Renault's finest writing. Lyrical, wise, compelling: the novels are a wonderful imaginative feat
All my sense of the ancient world - its values, its style, the scent of its wars and passions - comes from Mary Renault. I turned to writing historical fiction because of something I learned from Renault: that it lets you shake off the mental shackles of your own era, all the categories and labels, and write freely about what really matters to you
Mary Renault's portraits of the ancient world are fierce, complex and eloquent, infused at every turn with her life-long passion for the Classics. Her characters live vividly both in their own time, and in ours
The Alexander Trilogy stands as one of the most important works of fiction in the 20th century . . . it represents the pinnacle of [Renault's] career . . . Renault's skill is in immersing us in their world, drawing us into its strangeness, its violence and beauty. It's a literary conjuring trick like all historical fiction - it can only ever be an approximation of the truth. But in Renault's hands, the trick is so convincing and passionately conjured.
INTRODUCED BY TOM HOLLAND

He stood between death and life as between night and morning, and thought with a soaring rapture, 'I am not afraid'.

Alexander is born to rule. Caught in a power struggle for his loyalty between his mother, Olympias, and his father, King Philip of Macedon, his childhood teaches him politics and vengeance, honing his natural gifts into the makings of a king. Aristotle's tutoring sharpens his mind and fires his ambitions, while his passionate love for the devoted Hephastion teaches him how to trust. At eighteen, Alexander is already battle-hardened, the commander of Macedon's cavalry - and when his father is murdered, he must draw on all his skill, strength and fiery ambition to claim his destiny.

In the first novel of her stunning trilogy, Mary Renault vividly reimagines the life of Alexander the Great, the charismatic leader whose drive and ambition created a legend.

'This is not just a novel: it's also the best imagining we are ever likely to have of a man who tore up history' EMILY WILSON

'Lyrical, wise, compelling . . . a wonderful imaginative feat' SARAH WATERS

'The Alexandriad is one of the twentieth century's most unexpectedly original works of art' GORE VIDAL

Mary Renault was born in London and educated at Oxford. She then trained for three years as a nurse, and wrote her first published novel, Promise of Love. Her next three novels were written while serving in WWII. After the war, she settled in South Africa and traveled considerably in Africa and Greece. It was at this time that she began writing her brilliant historical reconstructions of ancient Greece, including The King Must Die, The Last of the Wine, and The Persian Boy. She died in Cape Town in 1983.