Sarah Ruden

A biography of Vergil, Rome's greatest poet, by the acclaimed translator of the Aeneid. "Ms. Ruden has converted the writer of the Aeneid from a noble and stodgy 'ancient' into our contemporary . . . persuasively re-imagined [as] a sympathetic, three-dimensional figure. . . . The existence of the Aeneid is cause for gratitude. So is Ms. Ruden's sensitive, celebratory...

A biography of Vergil, Rome’s greatest poet, by the acclaimed translator of the Aeneid 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. But the real...

Perpetua by Sarah Ruden offers an intimate and human portrait of Perpetua, a third-century woman author who was idealised as a Christian martyr. On March 7, 203, in the monumental amphitheatre 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 belief that granting women reproductive freedom poses a threat to "traditional" values is a dangerous myth that has long prospered in American politics, providing justification for increasing control over women's bodies and lives. How did such damaging ideas arise? In Reproductive Wrongs, acclaimed translator and cultural historian Sarah Ruden exposes how ideologies that oppress women and families in the...