Girl

A portrait in verse of two iconic female figures - the Virgin Mary and the Cretan 'snake goddess' - unravelling the millennia of myth men have woven around them.

In Girl, Ruth Padel takes a fresh and questioning look at girlhood and its icons. Across a triptych of interlocking sequences, she unravels the millennia of myth woven around girls.

A moving retelling of the Christian story transforms the Virgin Mary into a girl in a Primark T-shirt, facing a life shaped by divine will. Unearthed from the Cr