John Hughes on recasting the stories of the ancients in 'Tales From The Greek'

Good Reading Podcast

This monumental collaboration between award-winning author John Hughes and internationally-acclaimed painter and printmaker Marco Luccio breathes new life into ancient stories. A work of art in itself, this magnificent limited edition, individually signed and numbered book brings together Hughes' unique gift for storytelling and Luccio's bold and energetic images in the media of charcoal, etching and drypoint. In a series of narrative adaptations of Greek tragedies incorporating versions by Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides, John Hughes explores the universal themes of love, power, war, hate, revenge, sadness and ambition in evocative new renderings. In response, Marco Luccio has captured the spirit of ancient Greece, in all its beauty and its terror in a series of images that are the visual equivalent to Hughes epic tales. In this episode Gregory Dobbs chats to John Hughes about the journey from idea to reality, bringing ancient stories into the present, why the Greek legends still resonate with readers today, and meeting the challenge of a colossal and ambitious production five years in the making.