Cleopatra

Author: Saara El-Arifi

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 26 February 2026 by HarperCollins Publishers (The Borough Press) in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 352 pages
245 x 163 x 34mm | 558g

An enthralling, groundbreaking reimagining of an iconic queen, from the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author

'Enchanting, smart, and subversive – El-Arifi’s masterpiece' R. F. Kuang

'Lush world-building and lyrical prose burn brightly on every page' JENNIFER SAINT

'Addictive and entertaining' STYLIST

'An extraordinary achievement’ SAMANTHA SHANNON

*Limited Collector’s Edition featuring foiled board design and designed endpapers available to the first print run only whilst supplies last*

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YOU KNOW MY NAME.

BUT YOU DO NOT KNOW ME.

Your historians call me seductress, but I was ever in love's thrall.

Your playwrights speak of witchcraft, but my talents came from the gods themselves.

Your poets sing of my bloodlust, but I was always protecting my children.

How wilfully they refuse to concede that a woman could be powerful, strategic, divinely blessed to rule.

Death will silence me no longer.

This is not the story of how I died. But how I lived.

From one of the most remarkable and acclaimed storytellers of her generation, the #1 bestselling author of FAEBOUND and THE FINAL STRIFE, this epic and groundbreaking new novel shows us Cleopatra on her own terms.