So we come to yet another retelling of the life of Medea, the most famous child of Aeëtes of Colchis: priestess, traitor, herbalist, wife, and the Bronze Age’s most heralded murderer – as opposed to all the kings and heroes around her who were, of course, just doing their jobs as the corpses stacked neck-deep. This point is wonderfully and caustically made in David Vann’s newest version of the legend, Bright Air Black.

This is no translation but a reimagination, partly inspired by Vann’s own participation in a number of archaeological projects dealing with the Bronze Age (including sailing a reconstructed Argo-like ship). As Vann is quick to point out in his author’s note, this is a Bronze Age Medea stripped of all ‘centaurs and chariots rising into the air’ beyond those in the stories told by the characters themselves. But it’s also a feminist treatment of Medea, and Vann works very hard to try to get sympathetically into the head of a woman who decides to kill her own children.

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