Sarah Ruden

An intimate and human portrait of Perpetua, a third-century woman author who was idealized as a Christian martyr

On March 7, 203, in the monumental amphitheater at Carthage, Vibia Perpetua was one of five Christians who met their deaths after refusing to venerate the Roman emperor Septimius Severus and his son. Perpetua stood out from the other four, and in fact from all the other martyrs of her era and before: she was an aristocratic married woman with an infant son, and she is the first female prose author whose work survives.

Offering a probing new translation of Perpetua’s extraordinary prison diary and situating the life behind that diary within the turbulent late Roman Empire, Sarah Ruden tells the story of Perpetua’s remarkable feat of self‑invention as a martyr. As she builds on Perpetua’s own words and integrates them into their religious and historical contexts, Ruden shines a light on Perpetua’s disarming candidness, her brashness, and her naïvété. In contrast to traditional portrayals of the saint as a brave but submissive young woman, Ruden’s narrative reveals a complex individual who flaunts a vivid public persona as a martyr while at the same time navigating the emotions of a mother, daughter, sister, and friend approaching death.

“Sarah Ruden does justice to Perpetua’s remarkable prison diary in a way that few writers could. Ruden is one of our outstanding translators of ancient literature, and this lively and fascinating study draws on a rich understanding of Perpetua’s imaginative landscape.”—Kate Cooper, author of Queens of a Fallen World

“Close reading of a martyr’s tale… A worthy addition to scholarship.”—Kirkus Reviews

One of our leading interpreters of ancient literature, acclaimed translator Sarah Ruden (the Aeneid) has long had a passion for Sylvia Plath’s poetry. In I Am the Arrow: The Life and Art of Sylvia Plath in Six Poems, she offers a profound reconsideration of Plath’s genius. Ruden argues that Plath is more than a consummate mythmaker; the poet herself takes on the role of the classical hero: striving, suffering, descending to an underworld that threatens meaninglessness and despair, and returning to speak the previously unspoken. For the first time, a writer and a woman becomes that hero.

“Original and compelling. This book will be an inspiration to new and seasoned readers alike.” -Amanda Golden, co-editor, The Poems of Sylvia Plath

“This book will help the next generation of readers, writers, critics and (not least!) young poets learn from what Plath proved she – and sometimes she alone – could do. There’s no introduction to this very popular poet with this kind of purpose or this kind of spareness or this kind of force.” -Stefanie Burt

The Aeneid stands as a towering work of Classical Roman literature and a gripping dramatization of the best and worst of human nature. In the process of creating this epic poem, Vergil (70–19 BCE) became the world’s first media celebrity, a living legend. Through her intimate knowledge of Vergil’s work, Sarah Ruden brings to life a poet who was committed to creating something astonishingly new and memorable, even at great personal cost.

“A detailed biography of Vergil should be impossible; but Sarah Ruden displays such subtlety, such imagination, such love for her subject, as to render the impossible possible.” —Tom Holland, author of Dominion

“An enlightening and thoroughly modern introduction to Rome’s premier poet. This book should be required reading for every student and reader of Vergil’s immortal verse.”—Daisy Dunn, author of The Shadow of Vesuvius: A Life of Pliny