The Song of Achilles begins with Homer’s Iliad, which you can find online if you’re interested. Madeline Miller was introduced to the classics by her mom reading to her when she was a child, and she went on to major in Classics at Brown University. The following is her bio from her official website (link):
Madeline Miller was born in Boston and grew up in New York City and Philadelphia. She attended Brown University, where she earned her BA and MA in Classics. For the last ten years she has been teaching and tutoring Latin, Greek and Shakespeare to high school students. She has also studied at the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought, and in the Dramaturgy department at Yale School of Drama, where she focused on the adaptation of classical texts to modern forms. The Song of Achilles, her first novel, was awarded the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction and was a New York Times Bestseller. It has been translated into twenty-three languages including Dutch, Mandarin, Japanese, Turkish, Arabic and Greek. Madeline was also shortlisted for the 2012 Stonewall Writer of the Year, and her essays have appeared in a number of publications including the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Lapham’s Quarterly and NPR.org. She currently lives in Cambridge, MA, where she teaches and writes.
From YouTube, here is a video in 3 parts of Madeline Miller’s speech and a reading from the book at the Gaithersburg (Maryland) Book Festival in 2012.
Part 1: In which she introduces herself and her book.
Part 2: In which she reads from the book about Patroclus’ growing love for Achilles.
Part 3: Q&A
