A GUARDIAN NEW STATESMAN SPECTATOR AND IRISH TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR A new feminist
translation of Beowulf by the author of the acclaimed novel The Mere Wife . Nearly twenty
years after Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf - and fifty years after the translation that
continues to torment students around the world - there is a radical new verse interpretation of
the epic poem by Maria Dahvana Headley which brings to light elements never before translated
into English. A man seeks to prove himself as a hero. A monster seeks silence in his
territory. A warrior seeks to avenge her murdered son. A dragon ends it all. These familiar
components of the epic poem are seen with a novelist's eye towards gender genre and history.
Beowulf has always been a tale of entitlement and encroachment - of powerful men seeking to
become more powerful and one woman seeking justice for her child - but this version brings new
context to an old story. While crafting her contemporary adaptation Headley unearthed
significant shifts lost over centuries of translation.
