For centuries, writers have been reimagining familiar narratives, transforming stories we think we know into something fresh and unexpected. Recently, an explosion of literature revisiting well-worn tales – ranging from myths to Biblical stories and beloved classics – has offered new perspectives to readers. But why the surge? The literary canon hasn’t always been kind to marginalised voices and in response, feminist writers and authors of colour have taken up the mantle, questioning whose stories get to be told.  

Take, for example, The Silence of the Girls, published by Booker Prize nominee Pat Barker in 2018, which centres the women of The Iliad; or Percival Everett’s Booker Prize 2024-shortlisted novel James, which revisits Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from a Black perspective. These stories shift the focus, shining a spotlight on what were once secondary characters, and giving both voice and identity to the voiceless.  

And that’s just the beginning. Many other novels within the Booker Library have reimagined existing works, such as On Beauty by Zadie Smith and Quichotte by Salman Rushdie. Others, including Everything Under by Daisy Johnson and An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma, draw on Greek myths and native folklore. These are books that do more than simply retell – they transform, and even correct. 

James by Percival Everett 

In his latest novel, king of satire Percival Everett has reimagined Mark Twain’s 1885 American classic, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from the perspective of the enslaved Jim. The 13-year-old Huckleberry narrated Twain’s original, but here, Everett flips the reader’s perspective, offering a nuanced portrayal of a Black man desperately fighting for his freedom. When Jim learns he’s about to be sold and separated from his family, he decides to flee, but is determined to find a way to reunite with his wife and daughter. At the same time, Huck makes a break for it to escape the wrath of his abusive father, and the two runaways team up on a journey down the Mississippi River towards – what they hope is – freedom. 

Though James follows a similar trajectory to Twain’s original, Everett goes far beyond, deconstructing 19^th-century racial stereotypes, and reclaiming James’ identity in the process. ‘I hope that I have written the novel that Twain did not and also could not have written,’ Everett said in a recent interview with the Booker Prizes website. ‘I do not view the work as a corrective,’ he added, noting instead: ‘I see myself in conversation with Twain.’ 

On Beauty by Zadie Smith  

On Beauty, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2005, is inspired by Zadie Smith’s love of E.M. Forster and loosely based on the author’s Howards End, which was published in 1910. The novel, widely considered to be Forster’s masterpiece, focuses on three families belonging to different social classes and explores the conventions of the early 20^th-century period in which it was written. Smith has described On Beauty as a ‘homage’ to the original, and in it she tells the story of two feuding families whose lives intertwine – the Belseys and the Kipps. Marriage problems, religious differences and racism are brought to the fore and Smith draws many parallels with Forster’s original, such as family and relationship dynamics and class. In a review for The New York Times, Michiko Kakutani wrote that Smith ‘has managed the difficult feat of taking a famous and beloved classic and thoroughly reinventing it to make the story her own.’ 

Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin 

Daniel Kehlmann’s Tyll, which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2020, reimagines a 16th-century German folktale of Till Eulenspiegel, which documents the exploits of a wandering jester and trickster. Set during the Thirty Years’ War, Tyll follows its namesake, who flees his home village along with his friend Nele and a donkey. Over the course of his travels, Tyll becomes renowned for his performances, entertaining and outwitting those he meets, much like the original story. The novel, which was originally written in German and translated into English by Ross Benjamin, lifts the prankster out of the medieval period and renders him in modern technicolour. In a review, the German newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung said Kehlmann ‘transforms the legendary Till Eulenspiegel into poetic truth,’ reimagining true events, which he ‘occasionally tells them several times and always differently’. 

Everything Under by Daisy Johnson 

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2018, Everything Under takes on the Greek myth of Oedipus, one of the most famous tragedies in classical mythology. While the original epic is a tale of fate, where a boy inadvertently kills his father, Everything Under uses the premise as a springboard – yet subverts it, applying it to a mother-daughter relationship in a 21^st-century setting. Lexicographer Gretel is searching for her long-lost mother, Sarah, who disappeared 16 years earlier, while an ominous monster called ‘the Bonak’ is lurking among the canals of Oxfordshire. In her search, Gretel uncovers dark family secrets in the waterlogged world. Johnson’s novel, which was her debut, provides nods to various fairy tales and legends, including Hansel and Gretel, and ‘Beowulf’. The Irish Times praised the book for its ‘imaginative and innovative use of myth’ which it said leads to the ‘creation of a new myth’, and a story of ‘spellbinding tension’.  

The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Condé, translated by Richard Philcox 

Inspired by the story of Christ, The Gospel According to the New World blends Biblical tales with Caribbean folklore, transporting them to modern times. Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2023, Maryse Condé’s final novel (her 18^th), which was translated from French by her husband Richard Philcox, follows the story of baby Pascal who has been abandoned by his birth mother. Rumoured to be the child of God, Pascal searches for his origins as he grows into adulthood, travelling through communities while events arise that are deemed miracles by those around him. The novel was praised by Publishers Weekly, who called it an ‘ingenious bildungsroman of a messianic figure in contemporary Martinique,’ adding ‘readers will be transfixed.’ 

Quichotte by Salman Rushdie 

Seven-time Booker Prize nominee Salman Rushdie based his 2019 shortlisted novel on the classic Spanish novel Don Quixote. Miguel de Cervantes’ 17th century-set original follows Alonso Quijano, a Spanish man who changes his name to Don Quixote and embarks on a mission to help the defenceless and live by the long-lost codes of chivalry. Lost inside his own fictional world, Quixote is convinced that he has become a knight, and must seek out adventure and defeat a series of adversaries. It is claimed to be the second-most-translated book after the Bible, and Cervantes has been described as the father of the modern novel.  

Rushdie’s reimagining instead revolves around the character of Sam DuChamp, an Indian-born writer living in America. After becoming besotted with a famous TV star, he creates an alternative identity, Ismail Smile, and travels across America trying to find her. The Independent described the book as ‘a satire on our contemporary fake-news, post-truth, Trumpian cultural moment, where the concept of reality itself is coming apart.’ 

An Orchestra of Minorities by Chigozie Obioma 

In An Orchestra of Minorities, Chigozie Obioma has created a modern-day retelling of the Greek poem The Odyssey, which was composed by Homer around the 7^th or 8th century BC and set across a mammoth 24 books. Obioma’s re-versioning, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2019, transports readers to Nigeria, where the life of a young poultry farmer named Chinonso is changed after he encounters a woman, Ndali, who is about to jump off a bridge. After persuading her against it, the two embark on a relationship and end up falling in love. But her family disapproves of the union due to Chinonso’s low social standing, and he consequentially leaves his homeland to seek out an education in Cyprus, where he then encounters a series of hardships. Ndali and Chinonso’s relationship mirrors that of Odysseus and Penelope’s relationship in The Odyssey, as both Ndali and Penelope endure the arduous wait for their lovers to return home. The Boston Globe called the novel ‘a historical treasure’ rich with allusions to both classical and Indigenous myths. 

The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre  

In her novella The Adventures of China Iron, the English translation of which was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2020, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara reinterprets the 19th-century epic poem ‘The gaucho Martín Fierro’ by José Hernández. Widely considered one of Argentina’s most significant literary works, the poem focuses on an Argentine singer who is drafted into war and recounts the hardships of military life. In Cámara’s narrative, she pivots the spotlight to one of the poem’s overlooked female characters – Martín Fierro’s abandoned wife, China – and gives her the starring role. China sets off in a wagon across the pampas on a journey of self-discovery after her husband is conscripted. Accompanying her is a new-found friend turned lover, Liz, a Scottish woman in search of her own husband. In the Guardian, James Smart wrote that the book ‘leaves traditional gender roles in the dust’ and that it is ‘an elegy to the land and its lost cultures’. 

The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín 

Colm Tóibín’s The Testament of Mary, shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2013, offers a poignant reimagining of the story of the Virgin Mary. Rather than the obedient and stereotypical figure often portrayed in scripture and art, Tóibín reframes the revered saint, portraying her as a grieving mother – one who is mourning the death of her son. The Irish author changes both her perspective and demeanour, allowing her mortal and relatable emotions with which she wrestles constantly, including guilt and regret. This version of Mary is also a more empowered woman, one which The Guardian praised as ‘sceptical and grudging’, and ‘far more true and real than the saintly perpetual virgin of legend’.  

Pearl by Siân Hughes 

After Marianne’s mother goes missing when she’s a child, she struggles to adjust. In the years following, she fixates on her disappearance, all the while trying to seek out answers. Marianne comes across a 14^th-century poem, ‘Pearl’, and attempts to create an illustration of it, in the hope it will provide some relief. In writing her Booker Prize 2023-longlisted novel, Siân Hughes was inspired by the poem that gave her novel its name – a poem considered one of the most important surviving Middle English works of literature. The original is narrated by the father of a child who has passed away; asleep in his garden he dreams of a young maiden who shows him images of the biblical Heavenly City. ‘I realised that my story and the story of “Pearl” both had a parent and child separated by a river of death,’ said Hughes, in an interview with the Booker Prizes website. ‘For as long as I have tried to write this book it has been a response to the poem,’ she added – ‘so much so that I cannot remember how the two first became entangled’.  

Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie  

Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire, longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2017, is a contemporary retelling of Sophocles’ Antigone. Written in 441 BC, the Greek play explores themes of family loyalty, law, and justice, as its titular character defies the king’s orders to bury her brother, sparking a fatal conflict. Home Fire reimagines the tragedy, but focuses on the identity of a British Muslim family and their struggles to keep their cultural practices alive amidst the threat of terrorism. Isma has cared for her younger twin siblings, Aneeka and Parvaiz, since their mother passed away and their father became a jihadist. Now that the twins have turned 18, it’s time for Isma to pursue her dream, accepting an invitation to travel to America. Home Fire draws on Antigone’s fraught sibling dynamic and big moral questions. The Guardian called it a ‘powerful exploration of the clash between society, family and faith in the modern world, while tipping its hat to the same dilemma in the ancient one.’