The Spanish writer on how Papyrus, her bestselling history of literature in the ancient world, changed her life at a difficult moment, and why it’s a mistake to undervalue books Born in 1979, Irene ...

For Spanish writer and classical philologist Irene Vallejo, Alexandria is not simply the setting of an ancient legend; it is the symbolic birthplace of one of humanity’s greatest ambitions: preserving ...

*Originally published on March 5, 2024. In the modern era, books are so ubiquitous as to seem mundane. But for philologist and historian Irene Vallejo, who has traced written texts back to their ...

From Alexandria to Oxford, a kaleidoscopic history of the written word What do you give the queen who has everything? When Mark Antony was wondering how to impress Cleopatra in the run-up to the ...

Novelist and essayist Vallejo makes her English-language debut with this rewarding exploration of how books and libraries developed in the ancient Hellenistic and Roman eras. Detailing the influence ...