Renault also posits the notion that Alexander's relentless drive to conquer the world stemmed in part from his troubled relationship with his domineering mother, and his desire to 'escape' from her influence by leading his army ever eastward. In Renault's view, Alexander's love for Bagoas influenced his desire to unite the Greek and Persian peoples. Bagoas' narration provides both a Persian view of the conquest and an intimate look at the personality of the conqueror. The Persian Boy is a 1972 historical novel written by Mary Renault and narrated by Bagoas, a young Persian from an aristocratic family who is captured by his father's enemies, castrated, and sold as a slave to the king Darius III, who makes him his favorite.Įventually he becomes the lover and most faithful servant of Alexander the Great, who overthrew Darius and captured the Persian Empire. The Persian Boy (Alexander the Great #1), Mary Renault until 1959, after the success of The Last of the Wine proved that American readers and critics would accept a serious gay love story. The Charioteer could not be published in the U.S. Instead she was free to focus on larger ethical and philosophical concerns, while examining the nature of love and leadership.

By turning away from the 20th century and focusing on stories about male lovers in the warrior societies of ancient Greece, Renault no longer had to deal with homosexuality and anti-gay prejudice as social 'problems'. In a sense, The Charioteer (1953), the story of two young gay servicemen in the 1940s who try to model their relationship on the ideals expressed in Plato's Phaedrus and Symposium, is a warm-up for Renault's historical novels. They include a pair of novels about the mythological hero Theseus and a trilogy about the career of Alexander the Great. Her historical novels are all set in ancient Greece.

In addition to vivid fictional portrayals of Theseus, Socrates, Plato and Alexander the Great, she wrote a non-fiction biography of Alexander. Mary Renault was an English writer best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece.

The Persian Boy by Mary Renault