La historia de Alejandro Magno contada por Bagoas, su fiel criado.

Basada en una figura histórica, El muchacho persa cuenta los últimos años de vida de Alejandro Magno a través de los ojos del que fuera su amante, Bagoas.

Hijo de un noble ejecutado por traición, vendido como esclavo y castrado cuando era niño, pasó al servicio de Darío III Codomano y, tras el asesinato de este, fue regalado al joven macedonio. Su relación sostendrá a Alejandro mientras este tiene que hacer frente a varios complots de asesinato, a las demandas de dos esposas, a los motines periódicos de su ejército y a su formidable carácter. Bagoas será también testigo de los profundos lazos de amistad y de compromiso que el emperador tiene con sus soldados.

Renault nos enseña cómo este muchacho persa podría haber comprendido y apoyado los fervientes planes de Alejandro mejor que cualquiera de sus generales.

Reseña:
«Las novelas históricas de Renault están entre las mejores jamás escritas.»
The Washington Post

Censurada durante muchos años en España, debido al desprejuiciado modo en que expone los valores sexuales de la época, El muchacho persa al que alude el título es Bagoas, quien, vendido como esclavo cuando su noble padre fue ejecutado por traición, fue regalado a un joven conquistador que empezaba a ser ya conocido como Alejandro Magno.A través de la mirada de este joven, no sólo se nos muestran las más diversas facetas de un hombre poliédrico y de una subyugante personalidad, sino que se nos ofrece además un excepcional y colorista retrato del mundo de su tiempo y de los valores por los que se regía.

Typical Renault, her character development is as always superb and her telling of the story is written so as to keep you from putting the book down. ( )

This was one of the most difficult to read books I've dealt with in a long while- the prose was clunky, the story wasn't especially interesting (I'm an ancient civ major specializing in the Near East so...take that as you will), and the people and places were nearly impossible to differentiate. It took me five months to slog through this book for the simple fact that although I am a huge lover of Alexander the Great and love stories in general, this felt like a chore to read and was ultimately a disappointment.
All of that aside- I wept through the final ten pages. The foreshadowing in this book in the final chapters are some of the most artfully done I've ever come across (and truly, I envy any readers who don't have a significant background in the topic, as they must have felt them all the more strongly not knowing what would come).

Had this story been stripped down and presented less as a warped history of Al'skander's triumphs and follies and more as what it was- a great love story, it would have been much more successful. It's distressing to know that Mary Renault is passed because she could have been a prolific non-fiction scholar had she written more than two books in the genre in favor of the historical fiction she has left us with.

All in all I wouldn't recommend this book to many if only because it's fairly tedious and there's more grissle than meat but at its core, it's a beautiful story and I'm thankful it was told. ( )

Este é o primeiro de três volumes de uma biografia de Alexandre o Grande, uma das figuras históricas que mais me apaixona . Aluno do filósofo Aristóteles não só foi grande conquistador mas um homem com uma visão para uma humanidade unida nas suas diferenças. Admirador da cultura persa, conseguiu criar um mundo onde se falava grego e que durou mil anos, misturando culturas e povos. Pretendo terminar a trilogia no ano 2020. ( )