A n c i e n t G r e e k M y t h i n W o r l d Fiction since 1989 i Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception presents scholarly monographs off ering new and innovative research and debate to students and scholars in the reception of Classical Studies. Each volume will explore the appropriation, reconceptualization and recontextualization of various aspects of the Graeco- Roman world and its culture, looking at the impact of the ancient world on modernity. Research will also cover reception within antiquity, the theory and practice of translation, and reception theory. Also available in the Series: Ancient Magic and the Supernatural in the Modern Visual and Performing Arts, edited by Filippo Carlà and Irene Berti Greek and Roman Classics in the British Struggle for Social Change, edited by Henry Stead and Edith Hall Imagining Xerxes, Emma Bridges Ovid’s Myth of Pygmalion on Screen, Paula James Victorian Classical Burlesques: A Critical Anthology , Laura Monros-Gaspar ii Ancient Greek Myth in World Fiction since 1989 Edited by Justine McC o n n e l l a n d E d i t h H a l l Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc LONDON • OXFORD • NEW YORK • NEW DELHI • SYDNEY iii Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC 1B 3 DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2016 © Justine McConnell, Edith Hall and Contributors, 2016 Justine McConnell and Edith Hall have asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identifi ed as Editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the authors. British Library Cataloguing- in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN : HB : 978-1-47257-937-9 PB : 978-1-47257-938-6 e PDF : 978-1-47257-940-9 ePub: 978-1-47257-939-3 Library of Congress Cataloging- in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Classical Reception Typeset by Refi neCatch, Broad Street, Bungay, Suffolk iv C o n t e n t s Acknowledgements vii List of Contributors viii Introduction Justine McConnell 1 1 From Anthropophagy to Allegory and Back: A Study of Classical Myth and the Brazilian Novel Patrice Rankine 13 2 Ibrahim Al-Koni’s Lost Oasis as Atlantis and His Demon as Typhon William M. Hutchins 31 3 Greek Myth and Mythmaking in Witi Ihimaera’s Th e Matriarch (1986) and Th e Dream Swimmer (1997) Simon Perris 47 4 War, Religion and Tragedy: Th e Revolt of the Muckers in Luiz Antonio de Assis Brasil’s Videiras de Cristal Sofi a Frade 63 5 Translating Myths, Translating Fictions Lorna Hardwick 75 6 Echoes of Ancient Greek Myths in Murakami Haruki’s novels and in Other Works of Contemporary Japanese Literature Giorgio Amitrano 91 7 ‘It’s All in the Game’: Greek Myth and Th e Wire Adam Ganz 105 8 Writing a New Irish Odyssey: Th eresa Kishkan’s A Man in a Distant Field Fiona Macintosh 123 9 Th e Minotaur on the Russian Internet: Viktor Pelevin’s Helmet of Horror Anna Ljunggren 135 10 Diagnosis: Overdose. Status: Critical. Odysseys in Bernhard Schlink’s Die Heimkehr Sebastian Matzner 147 11 Narcissus and the Furies: Myth and Docufi ction in Jonathan Littell’s Th e Kindly Ones Edith Hall 163 v vi Contents 12 Philhellenic Imperialism and the Invention of the Classical Past: Twenty- fi rst Century Re- imaginings of Odysseus in the Greek War for Independence Efrossini Spentzou 181 13 Th e ‘Poem of Force’ in Australia: David Malouf, Ransom and Chloe Hooper, Th e Tall Man Margaret Reynolds 195 14 Young Female Heroes from Sophocles to the Twenty-First Century Helen Eastman 211 15 Generation Telemachus: Dinaw Mengestu’s How to Read the Air Justine McConnell 225 Notes 237 Index 269 Acknowledgements Th e genesis of this book lies in a conference organized by Edith Hall with the help of Katie Billotte at the British Academy in London in July 2012. We are grateful for the support of the British Academy, and warmly thank all those who attended the conference and made it such a success. We are also grateful for the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Leverhulme Trust on separate projects which have run concurrently with the development of this book. We are grateful to Charlotte Loveridge, who fi rst expressed interest in publishing this volume, and to Alice Wright, Lucy Carroll, and Anna MacDiarmid at Bloomsbury, as well as to our copy- editor, Lisa Carden. We wish to thank the following in particular for their help and support in various ways: Fiona Macintosh, Sebastian Matzner and Stephen Tuck. vii C o n t r i b u t o r s Giorgio Amitrano taught Japanese Language and Literature at the ‘Orientale’ University of Naples until 2012. He has been the director of the Italian Cultural Institute of Tokyo since 2013. His translations of Japanese literature into Italian include works by Kawabata Yasunari, Murakami Haruki, Yoshimoto Banana, Nakajima Atsushi, Inoue Yasushi and Miyazawa Kenji. He was awarded the Noma Award for the Translation of Japanese Literature and the Grinzane Cavour Prize (Lifetime Achievement Award) in 2001 and 2008 respectively. Helen Eastman is Artistic Associate of the Archive for the Performance of Greek and Roman Drama at Oxford University and Director of the Cambridge Greek Play. She has worked as a director of theatre and opera throughout Europe and has written a number of plays and librettos. She founded the Live Canon ensemble. She is about to be the Peter Wall Institute Artist in Residence and Visiting Scholar at Th e University of British Columbia. Her research has focused on classical reception in contemporary theatre and poetry. Sofi a Frade is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. Her research interests focus on the politics of Greek tragedy and performance reception in Portugal. She is the author of Heracles and Athenian Propaganda: Politics, Imagery and Drama (Bloomsbury, forthcoming). Adam Ganz is Reader in Screenwriting at Royal Holloway, University of London, as well as being a professional screenwriter and director for radio, fi lm and television. His research focuses on audiovisual narrative, on the television development process, and on the collaboration between author and audience. His dramas for radio include Th e Chemistry Between Th em (2014), Th e Gestapo Minutes (2013), Nuclear Reactions (2010) and Listening to the Generals (2009). Aft er teaching at Reading, Oxford, Durham and Royal Holloway universities, Edith Hall took up a Chair in Classics at King’s College London in 2012. She is also co- founder and Consultant Director of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama ( APGRD ) at Oxford. Her latest book is Introducing the Ancient Greeks (W. W. Norton, 2014). She has recently been awarded the Erasmus Medal of the European Academy for her research. viii Contributors ix Lorna Hardwick is Emeritus Professor Classical Studies at the Open University UK and an Honorary Research Associate of the Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama at Oxford. With James Porter she is series editor of the Classical Presences series (Oxford University Press). Recent publications have included essays on the relationship between translation and reception of Greek epic, drama and historiography and the implications for subsequent cultural histories. She is currently working on a second edition for Cambridge University Press of her Reception Studies (2003). William Maynard Hutchins , who is a professor at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, was educated at Berea College, Yale University and the University of Chicago. He was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts grant for literary translation in 2005–2006 and a second in 2011–2012. He was co- winner of the 2013 Saif Ghobash/Banipal Prize. Anna Ljunggren is Professor of Russian at Stockholm University. Her main area of research is nineteenth- and twentieth- century poetry. She has also conducted a project dedicated to contemporary Russian prose at the turn of the millennium. She is originally from St Petersburg, where she gained her MA in Romance languages, and she taught for a number of years in the United States. Fiona Macintosh is Professor of Classical Reception and Director of the APGRD at the University of Oxford. Her publications include Dying Acts (Palgrave Macmillan, 1994), Greek Tragedy and the British Th eatre 1660–1914 (with Edith Hall; Oxford University Press, 2005) and Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus (Cambridge University Press, 2009). She has edited numerous APGRD volumes, most recently Th e Oxford Handbook of Greek Drama in the Americas (with Kathryn Bosher, Justine McConnell and Patrice Rankine; Oxford University Press, 2015). Sebastian Matzner is Lecturer in Comparative Literature at King’s College London. His research focuses on interactions between classical and modern literature, particularly in relation to literary and critical theory, the history of sexualities, and the theory and poetics of intercultural encounters across time. His doctoral thesis, Th e Forgotten Trope: Metonymy in Poetic Action , won the University of Heidelberg’s Prize for Classical Philology and Literary Th eory and is forthcoming as a monograph.