(from www.amazon.com)
The Mists of Avalon is a 1982 novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, in which she relates the Arthurian legends from the perspective of the female characters.
The book follows the trajectory of Morgaine (often called Morgan Le Fay or Morgan of the Fairies in other works),[1] a priestess fighting to save her matriarchal Celtic culture in a country where patriarchal Christianity threatens to destroy the pagan way of life. The book follows the lives of Gwenhwyfar, Viviane, Morgause, Igraine and other women who are often marginalized in Arthurian retellings. King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table are supporting rather than main characters.
The Mists of Avalon is in stark contrast to other retellings of the Arthurian tales, which consistently paint Morgaine as a distant, one-dimensional evil witch or sorceress, with no real explanation given (or required) for her antipathy. In this case Morgaine is cast as a strong woman who has unique gifts and responsibilities at a time of enormous political and spiritual upheaval as she is called upon to defend her indigenous matriarchal heritage against impossible odds. The Mists of Avalon stands as a watershed for feminist interpretation of male-centered myth by articulating women’s experience at times of great change and shifts in gender-power. The typical battles, quests, and feuds of King Arthur’s reign are described as supporting elements to the women’s lives.
Bradley received much praise for convincing portrayal of the main protagonists, her respectful handling of the Pagan ways of Avalon and for telling a story in which there is neither black and white or good and evil, but several truths.
Isaac Asimov called it “the best retelling of the Arthurian Saga I have ever read”, and it won the 1984 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and spent four months on the New York Times best seller list in hardcover. The trade paperback edition of Mists of Avalon has ranked among the top five trade paperbacks on the monthly Locus bestseller lists for almost four years. In Germany, Mists of Avalon has been included in the “Bild Bestseller Bibliothek” of the Bild, Germany’s highest-selling newspaper; a list of the 25 finest pieces of popular fiction of all time, alongside other classics like Shining or The Silence of the Lambs.[