Write On! interviews Author Costanza Casati, Winner of the Wilbur & Niso Smith Adventure Writing Prize, 2025.
Costanza Casati was born in Texas and grew up in a village in Northern Italy, where she studied Ancient Greek and Ancient Greek literature, under one of the country’s most rigorous academic programmes. She’s a graduate of the prestigious Warwick Writing MA in the UK and has worked as a screenwriter and journalist. Her debut novel, Clytemnestra, sold into more than 20 territories worldwide and was the winner of the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award, shortlisted for the Historical Writers Association Debut Crown Award. Babylonia, her second novel, was an instant Sunday Times bestseller and the winner of the Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize.
WO: How would you describe your writing to someone new to it?
I’m the author of historical fiction and myth retellings that focus on infamous women from the ancient world. As a writer, I’m passionate about female desire and ambition, as well as the way in which women in power have been perceived through the centuries. I love researching and writing about ancient cultures people may not be familiar with, as well as creating a connection between our modern way of thinking and the lives of the ancient by focusing on very human and timeless feelings: love and loss, desire and ambition, grief. When writing my novels, I like to explore how, through the centuries, many things have changed, but some feelings have stayed the same.
WO: Can you tell us a bit about your latest book, Babylonia?
Babylonia is the story of Semiramis, the first and only female ruler of the empire of ancient Assyria, and the infamous love triangle that made her queen. It’s based on the life of the real historical figure Sammu-ramat, who, in the ninth century BCE, ruled an empire stretching from the Mediterranean coast in Syria to present day Western Iran. Her power was so great that, as soon as she died, her story became the stuff of legend. Narrated from three different perspectives, the novel is about many things: female ambition and longing, love in the face of loss, the tragic consequences of war and the quest for immortality.
WO: What inspired you to write in the first place and what inspires you now?
I’ve always loved to lose myself in a story and started writing to fulfil this need; like many other authors, I was writing the books I wanted to read. My first novel was inspired by the very strong feelings I had while studying the ancient Greek tragedies. I was angry at the way the character of Clytemnestra had been portrayed and vilified throughout the centuries and it was that anger that allowed me to understand the character and write the novel. No matter the topic I’m currently researching and writing about, I always need to find a strong emotional hook with a story: whether it’s Clytemnestra’s anger and heartbreak, or Semiramis’s longing and ambition. That overwhelming emotion, the kind you can’t stop thinking about, is what usually inspires me to write.
WO: The current issue of Write On! explores the theme of ‘(R)Evolution’ comparing natural, gradual changes with swift and radical ones. Do you view your own writing as having gently evolved over time? Or do you enjoy switching it up and trying new things regularly?
This is a great question. I would say my writing has slowly evolved over time. This is mainly because, by entering the publishing world and discussing my novels, I’ve lost that ‘innocence’ that allows you to write your first stories in a way that is less aware of ‘intention’ and more focused on the heart and soul of a book. So I’m now more self-conscious whenever I make a stylistic choice, or decide how to structure a particular scene, but I always want to retain the ‘heart’ of the story: that search for magic that is hard to explain and rationalise when talking about the writing process.
WO: What one piece of advice would you give an aspiring writer?
I would say, be obsessed with your characters! If you don’t love them or think of them as real people, then no one else will. Writing is first and foremost about belief, and you need to believe in your story completely as you are writing it.
WO: Can you tell us anything about future projects?
I’m currently working on an historical fantasy. Mythmaker is set in an alternative version of Renaissance Italy, where art and magic are inextricably bound and the main character can give life to the stories she writes.
WO: Lastly, if you could choose one fictional animal/creature to be a pet or companion, who would it be and why?
In Babylonia, Semiramis walks around the palaces and gardens of the Assyrian capital with a leopard. She frees the leopard from the death it would have faced in the lion hunts – a common sport for Assyrian kings – and keeps it with her until the end of the novel. Though the leopard is not named in the novel, I named her Nimraa.
If I had to choose one fictional creature as a pet and companion from a novel that isn’t mine, I would definitely love to have a daemon from His Dark Materials series. Philip Pullman describes a daemon as: An aspect of your self which has a physical existence outside you in the form of an animal. When you are a child, it changes shape. In adolescence, it acquires one fixed form. I’d be very curious to know which shape my daemon would take!
You can find out more about Costanza Casati here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/authors/288834/costanza-casati and connect on Instagram: @costanzacasati . Babylonia is available to buy here.
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