The Persian Boy

The Persian Boy is a historical novel by the English writer Mary Renault, published in 1972. Bagoas narrates it, and it covers the climactic last seven years of the life of Alexander the Great.

Bagoas is a young Persian from an aristocratic family who is captured by his father's enemies, castrated and sold as a slave to King Darius III, who makes him his favourite. Alexander the Great then overthrows Darius and takes the Persian Empire, and Bagoas becomes his lover and most faithful servant, sustaining him through mutinies, assassination attempts and two marriages. Because the story is told by a Persian, the conquest is seen from the side that lost, and the book offers both an intimate view of Alexander's character and a Persian account of his campaigns. Renault puts forward the idea that Alexander's love for Bagoas influenced his wish to unite the Greek and Persian peoples, and she also suggests that his relentless drive to conquer came partly from his troubled relationship with his domineering mother and a desire to escape her influence by leading his army further east.

The novel is a sequel to Renault's earlier novel about Alexander, and it is written in Bagoas's voice from beginning to end.