The Ancient Novel

Tibor Fischer goes in search of the ancient novel to discover they aren't as dusty as the manuscripts on which they're written.

Two thousand years before Hollywood, Greek and Latin novelists were writing stories that read like film scripts, others like a Mills and Boon romance and others still like religious mystery texts worthy of Dan Brown's Da Vinci code. They incorporate the twists of a soap opera, bawdy humour and magical episodes in way that is strikingly modern; and their influence on world literature is vast - as Cervantes, Goethe, Shakespeare and Racine (amongst others) testify.

At the International Conference on the Ancient Novel, in Lisbon, Tibor Fischer speaks to leading academics about this area of fiction very few people know about. He finds love, happiness and tragedy at the end and shows that although our names have changed, human nature has remained the same.

Produced by Gavin Heard

In search of the ancient novel, Tibor Fischer discovers they're like film scripts.