Danai Christopoulou is Greek author raised on a diet of myths and tragedies. Their writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for a Best of Small Fictions and has appeared in Glamour, Marie Claire, khōréō, Fusion Fragment, Flame Tree Press, and Writer’s Digest.
Their debut book, Vile Lady Villains, is forthcoming on May 12, 2026, from Union Square Press. It is a queer, gothic horrormantasy where Lady Macbeth and Klytemnestra are thrown together after a witch’s potion pulls Lady Macbeth into a strange realm of stories. Hunted across worlds and pursued by supernatural forces, the two infamous killers form a fragile alliance. As their bond deepens, they must decide whether to return to the tragedies that defined them or destroy the stories that bound them.
It is available for preorder now.
Debutiful is excited to reveal the cover, which features art by Andreea Dumuta and design by UNSQ’a Art Director Patrick Sullivan, along with a short essay by Danai Christopoulou about Vile Lady Villains.
When I was young, I always assumed I would follow the “family business” and become an actor like both my parents. I took classes, memorized monologues, even auditioned for the Greek National Theater once I turned eighteen. But I was never good at embodying a character on a stage—awkward and introverted as I am, I find it more rewarding to study a character’s motivations on the page, dissect what the words the author uses reveal and conceal things about them. Books are my stage of choice. Less chances to be booed to my face, perhaps.
Although Vile Lady Villains is not the first novel I’ve written, it’s the first that made it to the proverbial stage—it weathered the maelstrom of the publishing industry and will soon (April 02 in the UK, May 12 in the US, and sometime in June in Greece) find its way into the hands of readers. And I’m thrilled that it’s going to be Vile Lady Villains I’m debuting with, because it’s my love letter to theater and to all the characters I’ve been obsessed with since I was a kid. My mother was a theater coach and director for most of her life, so she had me memorize monologues from Greek drama and Shakespearean plays when I was probably way too young. But what this did was create a lifelong fascination for characters such as Klytemnestra and Lady Macbeth, and an appreciation of all the ways in which their rage, their ability to be calculating and ruthless resonated and ‘fit’ together. I wanted to write a story that honors where these characters came from, but also becomes a springboard for them to chart new territories and have new adventures. Rebel against their given narratives, as I think every act of retelling is an act of rebellion. And yes, why not, fall madly in love. Love is rebellion too, especially queer love.
Vile Lady Villains is a story about stories, and in many ways a story about authors—how we write ourselves into our characters often without realizing (looking at you, Will), how our biases and preferences color our characters’ behaviors and choices. It’s a very meta story, utilizing a lot of techniques from theater to create liminal spaces where these characters can be tried and find new ways to relate to themselves and to the world. This theatricality is very prominent in the
artistic direction of the US cover; you see Lady Macbeth and Klytemnestra framed in a theater stage, surrounded by books and skulls. Very gothic. It’s a very gothic book overall, at least up to its ending—I didn’t want to give it a gothic ending. Their original tragedies were dark enough; I wanted to see them find their way to the light, even if they’re dripping blood.
When writing about characters that are already so established in the literary canon, that have been adapted so many times in so many different ways and forms, it’s an interesting exercise to nail down their physicality. What they look like to me. Klytemnestra’s Greekness was very important to me: I wanted to write a character that looks like I believe a Bronze Age woman would look, possibly shorter, with tan olive skin, with a round belly and hips, a prominent nose and dark curly hair (which she ends up dyeing throughout the book, first blonde and then red, because they did dye their hair in Bronze Age Greece, and blonde and red were often considered colors associated with royalty and bravery). These characters go through a lot as the book progresses, and end up with physical changes to make up for it. Lady Macbeth, although she’s often pictured as a redhead in the paintings of John Singer Sargent, to me always felt like the quintessential gothic heroine, with long black hair and pale skin, ghostlike. Almost as if she’s about to burst into a flock of blackbirds, haunt you in graveyards and forests. But to you, these characters might look differently—and that’s also valid. One of the most fascinating things about being lucky enough to debut in two different territories, in the UK and the US, was seeing how different artistic directions the book’s covers took with the characters. In a sense, every book cover art is also an adaptation, a retelling. And as such, an act of rebellion.