“In the Roman world, and in the worlds around it that Romans sought to subdue and control, the gods were merciless, frivolous, prone to set traps for humans, and largely indifferent to the unprivileged bulk of humankind, who in any case did not expect their fate in the afterworld to be any better than it had been on earth.”

English-born writer and novelist

Michael Korda is an English-born writer and novelist who became editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster in New York City. He worked in book publishing as well as in fiction, bringing together editorial experience and a literary career. He is known for his writing and for his leadership at one of the major American publishing houses. His public voice comes from both sides of that work, as an editor shaping books and as an author writing them.