The Persian Boy

The Persian Boy by Renault, Mary. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780553242942.

â It takes skill to depict, as Miss Renault has done, this half-man, half Courtesan who is so deeply in love with the warrior.â â The Atlantic Monthly The Persian Boy traces the last years of Alexanderâ s life through the eyes of his lover, Bagoas. Abducted and gelded as a boy, Bagoas was sold as a courtesan to King Darius of Persia, but found freedom with Alexander after the Macedon army conquered his homeland. Their relationship sustains Alexander as he weathers assassination plots, the demands of two foreign wives, a sometimes-mutinous army, and his own ferocious temper. After Alexanderâ s mysterious death, we are left wondering if this Persian boy understood the great warrior and his ambitions better than anyone.