Which C.S. Lewis novel features the protagonist Orual, queen of Glome?

C.S. Lewis’s novel Till We Have Faces features Orual, queen of Glome.

Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold was published in 1956. It retells the ancient myth of Cupid and Psyche from the viewpoint of Psyche’s older sister, here called Orual. Orual becomes queen of the fictional kingdom of Glome and narrates the story as a long accusation against the gods.

The novel is substantially different in emphasis from Lewis’s earlier popular works. Its first-person narrator is intelligent, politically capable, and emotionally wounded. The book explores jealousy, love, self-knowledge, religious devotion, and the difficulty of seeing one’s own motives clearly.

Lewis regarded it as one of his best fictional works. The title comes from the idea that people cannot fully speak or understand one another until they have developed true identities or “faces.” The book is sometimes confused with Lewis’s science-fiction trilogy or his Narnia novels, but it is a standalone mythological retelling.