Cassandra

Christa Wolf · 1929–2011 · Germany

Originally Kassandra (German)

Why it matters

The doomed Trojan prophetess narrates the fall of Troy from a position of clear-eyed, unheeded knowledge. Wolf's retelling doubles as a veiled meditation on East German state repression and the silencing of dissenting women.

At a glance

A single dense interior monologue fusing myth, politics, and prophecy without chapter breaks.