Winter HarvestIoanna Papadopoulou2023

From the moment of her birth, Demeter, the second born daughter of Kronos and Rhea, lived in darkness, trapped inside her father’s stomach, always fearing that inside her body a monster lived and she had to keep it caged. This rage inside her didn’t cease or grow any weaker when she was freed by her youngest brother, nor when she and her siblings defeated Kronos and his allies during the Titanomachy, the war that forever changed Greece. It stayed under her skin, always reminding her of its presence but never gaining control.

All that changed when her precious only child, Kore, vanished from the face of earth and Demeter found herself alone in her quest to regain her daughter. Unable to contain her rage, she gives in to all she tried so hard not to become and begins a period of starvation that brings humanity to the brink of extinction as she embarks on a journey to find Kore, filled with humiliation, further betrayal and desperation which reshapes her Godhood and changes her in a way she never expected nor wanted.

Winter Harvest is a stand-alone feminist mythology retelling which explores Demeter’s place in the Dodecatheon and her harsh and painful life as she becomes a chthonic Goddess, linked with both death and life. The novel combines various myths about Demeter, shaped like a fantasy novel which focuses on Demeter as a female goddess, struggling to fit into the patriarchal status quo of Olympus while she is constantly changing her identity in an attempt to find her place in the world and what it means to be female.