Natalie L. Hynes was born in 1974 in Birmingham, United Kingdom, and graduated from Cambridge University. Before venturing into her writing career, Hynes worked s as a comedian in several television stations as both a comedian and a panelist. When Hynes ventured into journalism, she developed an interest in writing. Her first literary book was titled The Great Escape (2007), which won her a prestigious PETA Proggy Award (for best animal-friendly children’s book in the following year.) The other famous books written by Hynes include The Ancient to Modern Life (2010), A Thousand Ships (2022) and Amber Fury (2014). Hynes’s latest novel is Stone-Blind (2022), inspired by her childhood experiences and reading culture. Her latest novel focuses on Medusa mythology, Greek gods, and goddesses.
Stone-Blind (2022) is about Medusa, the only human in her family of Gorgons (gods). All Medusa’s sisters are monsters with strange features, such as curled hairs like snakes and claws. Medusa’s family discovers she is not a god because she gets older and exhibits human traits. The Greek male gods quickly discover that Medusa is a beautiful female mortal, and they strategize on how to rape her. When Poseidon (a powerful Greek male god) finds Medusa in the temple, he rapes her repeatedly. After the rape, Medusa runs to hide in the family caves. Since the rape occurred in the temple, the goddess gets angry and punishes Medusa by turning her into a dangerous monster. Medusa is deadly, unlike her monster sisters, because anything she looks at dies instantly. Therefore, Medusa ends up living a miserable life.
Despite the expansiveness of the novel Stone-Blind, the author makes it intriguing by creating suspense, which arouses the readers' interest. The novel is a legendary fairy tale that shows an innocent woman who is sexually assaulted by a powerful male god. The woman is punished for the mistakes she never intended to commit. Hynes rejuvenated her childhood reading experiences and reconstructed Medusa's mythological story into a fascinating classic story that attracted millions of positive reviews.
