A fascinating look at the artistically productive reign of Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh in ancient Egypt

An engrossing biography of the longest-reigning female pharaoh in Ancient Egypt and the story of her audacious rise to power. Hatshepsut—the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt's throne—was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father’s family. Her failure to produce a male heir, however, paved the way for her improbable rule as a cross-dressing king. At just over twenty, Hatshepsut out-maneuvered the mother of Thutmose III, the infant king, for a seat on the throne, and ascended to the rank of pharaoh. Shrewdly operating the levers of power to emerge as Egypt's second female pharaoh, Hatshepsut was a master strategist, cloaking her political power plays in the veil of piety and sexual reinvention. She successfully negotiated a path from the royal nursery to the very pinnacle of authority, and her reign saw one of Ancient Egypt’s most prolific building periods. Constructing a rich narrative history using the artifacts that remain, noted Egyptologist Kara Cooney offers a remarkable interpretation of how Hatshepsut rapidly but methodically consolidated power—and why she fell from public favor just as quickly. The Woman Who Would Be King traces the unconventional life of an almost-forgotten pharaoh and explores our complicated reactions to women in power.

A biography of Hatshepsut, daughter of Thutmose I, who became Egypt's first female pharaoh.

Hatshepsut, Speak to Me, Ruth Whitman's eighth volume of poetry, is her most innovative and adventurous book. It is in the form of a conversation with Queen Hatshepsut, the only woman pharaoh in ancient Egypt, whose reign of more than twenty years was one of the most peaceful and artistically splendid eras in Egyptian history. As poet and pharaoh talk to each other, it becomes apparent that the two lives intersect remarkably across the centuries. Both must face problems of sexual identity, love, work, mothering, conflict, and loss. An admirer of Hatshepsut for the past forty years, Whitman has spent the last five researching the pharaoh's life and surrounding culture, visiting Egypt twice in order to study the landscape along the Nile to contemplate Hatshepsut's monuments, particularly her spectacular three-tiered temple at Deir el Bahri in the Valley of the Kings. The result is a vibrant glimpse into two parallel lives, illustrating a unique relationship between two women separated by twenty-five centuries, and illuminating many of the issues relevant to every contemporary woman's experience. Whitman goes beyond just telling Hatshepsut's story. She connects herself with the life of her subject, speaks to her, and learns from her. Hatshepsut, Speak to Me represents a culmination of Ruth Whitman's series of groundbreaking narrative poems written in the voices of other extraordinary women-Lizzie Borden, Tamsen Donner, Hanna Senesh, Anna Pavlova, and Isadora Duncan.

Biography of Hatshepsut's palace childhood and her adult life as Egypt's female pharaoh.

Hatshepsut was a young woman who became the first female pharaoh of Egypt. When her father, Thutmose I, died, Hatshepsut was the only heir. Since she was female, leaders were afraid to make her pharaoh. She finally declared herself the pharaoh in 1501 B.C. and ruled Egypt for about 20 years.