These are thwarted, at first, by Achilles's mother, the sea-nymph and goddess Thetis, who has an alarming ability to see, in literal terms, exactly what's going on between the boys at any given time.

Arriving at the court of King Peleus, he soon becomes the faithful friend of the king's son, Achilles, and begins developing romantic feelings towards him. In Miller's story, Patroclus is born a prince, but is exiled by his father, aged 10, after he accidentally kills a boy who has been bullying him. It roams back some years before the start of the Trojan war, to tell the story of the friendship between Patroclus and Achilles, and is suffused with battles and yearning, swords, snakes and sex, the latter described in wonderfully, sometimes hilariously misty language. The Song of Achilles is highly enjoyable, and full of scholarship, but also occasionally pulpy. On a strong shortlist, including Ann Patchett, Anne Enright, Cynthia Ozick and Esi Edugyan, Miller's novel was a slightly surprising winner. (There have been rumours that Apple might take over.) And while Miller says she's hugely honoured to win, she's also concerned and hopeful the award for women's literature will continue. This is the last year of the Orange prize, after the mobile phone company withdrew sponsorship, a decision announced unexpectedly last week. Miller, still blinking and beaming, is 'floating on endorphins', she says. The result is her lively first novel, The Song of Achilles, which was this week awarded the Orange prize for fiction. And so I wanted to explore the question: who is this man who means so much to Achilles?'

Patroclus doesn't appear very much in The Iliad. That was the moment I kept returning to, because I wanted to understand it. Miller was obsessed with Achilles's story, she says, 'and in particular, this terrible, grief-stricken, devastated reaction to losing Patroclus. And it is Achilles' overwhelming grief and wrath at the death of his close friend Patroclus that drives him back to the battlefield, to enact a revenge that will end with the body of Hector – the Trojan warrior who killed his friend – being dragged behind his chariot. It is Achilles's terrible pride that leads him to withdraw from battle, after an insult from Greek leader Agamemnon there are subsequently horrendous losses among the troops in the Greek army. And it started with that intriguing line: 'Sing, goddess, of the terrible rage of Achilles.' At the heart of Homer's story, his tale of a turbulent period in the 10th and final year of the Trojan war, is the exceptional Greek warrior Achilles, half-man, half-god.

Madeline miller