A Hungry Fire - by Élyssa Marcoux-Bissoondath (Paperback)

About the Book

Modern Dido strives to be as fearsome as her namesake, the legendary Queen Dido of Carthage, but she's troubled by unexplained chronic pain, and her Aeneas is not a lover but a gynecologist. Filtering a life-long pursuit of diagnosis through Vergil's Aeneid, Dido brandishes a wonky speculum aloft and demands answers from the gods.

Book Synopsis

When Queen Dido, founder of the great city of Carthage, was abandoned by her lover, the Trojan prince Aeneas, she asserted her power by climbing a funeral pyre, thus sealing a curse on his descendants for generations to come.

Her twenty-first-century namesake, however, doesn't want her life to end in flames. She needs answers.

Since encountering Vergil's Aeneid in the paintings of a childhood book, Modern Dido has striven to become as fearsome as her ancient counterpart. A driven and artistic civil engineer who dreams of designing her own Carthage, she navigates the thirteen-year pursuit of a diagnosis for her chronic, unexplained pelvic pains through the lens of the Roman epic. Princes and gods become doctors and protectors who follow her through years of tests, educated guesses, and medications. Her Aeneas is not a lover but a gynecologist.

Through the ages, the muses have sung of the rage of Achilles and the cunning of Odysseus. Now, with acerbic humour, they bear witness for a modern audience to the wrath of Dido as she waves a wonky speculum aloft.

Review Quotes

"Original, thought-provoking, and emotionally resonant. It sheds light on an experience that deserves to be heard and proves that some of the oldest stories can still resonate powerfully with the world we live in today."--@crystallreads "Instagram"