A Hungry Fire by Élyssa Marcoux-Bissoondath

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Summary

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.

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A Hungry Fire by Élyssa Marcoux-Bissoondath

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.

Élyssa Marcoux-Bissoondath is a bilingual, biracial author who has worked as a production editor for both CBC and Radio-Canada. She holds a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia and undergraduate degrees in Classical Studies and Ancient Oriental Languages from Université Laval. She resides in Québec City, QC.
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9781770868311
ISBN 10 1770868313
Title A Hungry Fire
Author Élyssa Marcoux-Bissoondath
Condition Unavailable
Binding Type Paperback
Publisher Cormorant Books
Year published 2026-08-12
Number of pages 272
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.