Frank Lawton

Thoroughly modern Marie: Matrix, by Lauren Groff, reviewed

A feminist abbess worries about gender roles and climate change in a novel based loosely on the life of the 12th-century poet Marie de France

Marie de France. [Alamy] 
issue 25 September 2021

It is 1158. A 17-year-old girl, born of both rape and royal blood, is cast out of the French court and condemned to spend her days in a threadbare abbey in England. She will go on to become abbess and one of the dominant forces in the land, transforming her abbey from a shack into an institution grown fat on holy power.

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