Natalie Haynes

Writer, broadcaster, and classicist

'I believe this is the only life we have. And we are obliged, therefore, to ourselves and for those around us, to live it as well as we can.'

Natalie Haynes is an English writer, broadcaster, classicist, and 'recovering comedian,' born in 1974 in Birmingham. She read Classics at Christ's College, Cambridge.

Her first novel, The Amber Fury, was published to great acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, as was The Ancient Guide to Modern Life, her earlier non-fiction book. Her second novel, The Children of Jocasta, was published in 2017, and her retelling of the Trojan War, A Thousand Ships, in 2019 – shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2020 and translated into multiple languages. Her non-fiction book Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myth was published in 2020 and became a bestseller in both the UK and US. She followed it with Divine Might: Goddesses in Greek Myth (2023) and the novel Stone Blind (2022), a retelling of the Medusa myth. Her most recent novel, No Friend to This House, a reimagining of Euripides' Medea, was published in 2025. 

She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4, reviewing for Front Row and Saturday Review, and has written and performed multiple series of her radio show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, available on BBC Sounds and Audible. She was a judge for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize for Fiction, and in 2015 was awarded the Classical Association Prize for her work bringing Classics to a wider audience. 

Natalie has been a longstanding supporter of Humanists UK, delivering the Voltaire Lecture in 2011 and the Holyoake Lecture in 2015 on 'Greek Tragedy and Humanism.' She is interviewed by Andrew Copson in What I Believe, reflecting on meaning, morality, and living without religion.