Babylonia is set in ancient Assyria with its brutal, warlike society. The heroine, Semiramis, is orphaned when her mother commits suicide in the village of Mari in western Assyria. She’s adopted by the chief shepherd, a violent and sadistic man who frequently beats her. Rather than bringing about her submission, under his brutal tutelage, she becomes self-righteous and angry and, when given the opportunity to escape with Onnes, a soldier, to Kalhu, the capital city, she does so. There Onnes marries her and introduces her to his brother, friend—and perhaps lover—the king, Ninus.
The book revolves around the relationship between the three, an amazing love triangle. All are complex, at least in part broken, the men (especially Onnes) possibly suffering from PTSD. From being jealous of Semiramis, Ninus moves to falling in love with her, complicating his relationship with Onnes, with Ninus’s own mother, Nisat, and other members of the court. Semiramis, a village girl, must make her way through court intrigues and politics, but her native intelligence helps her out-maneuver more-experienced courtiers as she attempts to fulfill a prophecy a diviner spoke to her in her childhood. Eventually she becomes the only female queen of Assyria.
The book is quite bloody, especially when Onnes, Ninus, and Semiramis go to Bactria to conquer the city of Balkh, but Casati doesn’t glorify the bloodshed, merely recognizes it as a fact of society at the time.
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Babylonia (Penguin, July 4, 2024) is available through:
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You can read my review of Casati’s debut novel, Clytemnestra, here.
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