Beowulf: A New Translation is a beautiful book by author Maria Dahvana Headley.
Tales of monsters and heroes often intertwined, justice rarely served, and dragons living among us.
A man looking to prove himself a hero. A monster that seeks silence in its territory. A warrior seeks revenge for her murdered son. One dragon ends it all.
Familiar elements of the epic seen through the eyes of a novelist about gender, genre and history – Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment, powerful men finding a way becomes more powerful, and a woman seeks justice for her child, but this version gives a new context to an old story.
While crafting his contemporary Beowulf adaptation, Headley found important changes lost through the centuries of translation.
The author of the wonderful Beowulf-inspired novel, The Mere Wife tackles the Old English epic poem with a powerful new feminist translation that radically restructures the story.
