Priya Sharma's fiction has appeared in venues such as Interzone, Black Static, Nightmare, Weird Tales, The Dark, Tor.com and Reactor. All the Fabulous Beasts is a collection of some of her short stories (Undertow Publications). Her first novella, Ormeshadow, is available from Tor.com and her second, Pomegranates from PS Publishing. Her work has been translated into Spanish, French, Italian, Czech, and Polish. She is a medical doctor and lives in the UK.

Pomegranates by Priya Sharma

Pomegranates rewrites the Greek myth of winter, intertwining the stories of Demeter, Persephone, and scientist Dr Ursa, punctuated by the voice of a Greek chorus. It examines the violent legacy of the gods on a modern world that no longer believes in them, and how their greed and violence brings about Persephone's reign in Hades. The other gods can only look on as she invokes a permanent winter that will end mankind.

 

REVIEWS

  • "Pomegranates reimagines the classic Greek myth of Demeter, Persephone and Hades, but it's much more than that. It's an expansion of the myth, which at the same time feels intimate, bringing the Gods to a level of a (very) dysfunctional family operating in a modern world firmly in the thrall of climate change...Priya Sharma does more in 101 pages than most writers can do in 500."

    – Jamie Mollart for BSFA

  • "Deliciously evocative, carefully constructed, and filled with just enough detail to keep the reader turning the pages, Pomegranates is a book which can be finished in a single sitting, but deserves to be savored more slowly."

    – Archita Mittra for Locus

  • "There are certain writers whose new work cannot come fast enough for me. Priya Sharma is one of those. If you're looking for a place to start with her fiction, you might take a look at Pomegranates."

    – John Langan, author of The Fisherman
 

BOOK PREVIEW

Excerpt

Persephone

Nothing's more bastardised than history. History's just a story that loses nothing in the telling.

There's no point explaining my story to the majority of the dead. People are as self-obsessed in death as they are in life. More so. They shuffle around in a vague approximation of what they were. I tried to talk to them, but all a dead baker wants to discuss is the price of flour. They've learnt nothing from dying.

I want to talk to you though, Bear. I want to tell you everything.

#

Hades was dying, little by little. I sat by his bed as he wasted away. Death was still at large in the world, but Man fought back with sewerage systems, surgery and antibiotics. Their innovations weakened Hades.

"I'll punish them for this," I told Hades as I sat beside him.

"I'm old, Persephone, older than you know." He squeezed my hand with weak fingers. "The dead are heavier when the living don't believe. You can't blame them for that."

"I'll punish them anyway."

"It's my time, that's all. Everything ends, even me. Haven't you learnt that yet? Thanatos will be here soon."

Thanatos. Long before memory Thanatos was both he and she, but eons of labour had worn away all self and sex. There's no room for anything else when you're death incarnate.

Let Thanatos come. I'd see them off.

I sang to Hades. I bathed him. I fed him. I brought William Shakespeare from the Elysium Fields, the part of the Underworld reserved for the blessed and the chosen. Will tells marvellous stories. He's one of the deceased worth listening to.

When Hades slept, I wreaked my revenge on Man. I sent havoc out into the world. Spanish Flu. HIV. ZIKA. Covid-19. Go on my dirty little darlings, shiver and shake. Go forth and multiply.

What do you think of me now, Bear?