Ajax is one of the most successful football clubs in Holland. However, It is an unusual name for a football club, considering its roots in Homer’s great epic Iliad.
Drawn by the name and my upbringing in the land of Troy, I felt compelled to pay homage to Homer. Thus, I penned a concise, modern rendition of the Iliad.
For that, I had to go through the old books and ancient scripts instead of depending only on Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey as reference: Aethiopis attributed to Arctinus of Miletus (7-8th century B.C.), Ajax by Sophocles (5th century B.C.), Achilleid by the Roman poet Publius Papinius Statius (1st century AD), The Fall of Troy by Quintus Smyrnaeus (4th Century AD).
Once I gathered the pivotal events, I wove them into a modern narrative, a unique blend of classic and contemporary, centered around a young Dutch football player named Ajax and a football tournament between the Greeks and the Trojans, all sparked by the abduction of their mascot, Helen the cow.
Now, this story has been republished with beautiful, unique new illustrations that bring the tale to life and add a fresh visual dimension to the classic and modern elements of the narrative.
