Lukman Clark

A life reclaimed in her own voice

Hypatia: In Her Own Words

Enter Alexandria through a story that refuses inherited certainty. Philosophy, danger, identity and power converge as Hypatia’s own account invites the reader to question what has been repeated—and listen for what was silenced.

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Ask Hypatia offers philosophical reflection and Neoplatonic perspective. For philosophical reflection and entertainment.

What Would You Ask Hypatia?

Enter Alexandria

Her story. Her philosophy. Her voice.

Open each section for a deeper look into the novel.
01Whose voice leads the story?

Hypatia speaks from within the world that shaped her—brilliant, observant and unwilling to surrender the meaning of her own life. The first-person perspective brings the reader close to her private reasoning, relationships and the choices she must make as pressure gathers around her.

02What waits in Alexandria?

Alexandria is both a center of learning and a city sharpened by ambition, doctrine and danger. As competing powers close in, philosophy becomes more than an intellectual pursuit: it becomes a way of seeing clearly, preserving identity and acting with courage.

03What ideas drive the novel?

Neoplatonic thought runs beneath the story through questions of unity, the soul, virtue, perception and the disciplined search for wisdom. These ideas do not sit apart from the drama; they shape how Hypatia understands the people around her and the forces working against her.

A glimpse inside the novel

“This is some devil’s notion of a church.”

A single image opens a darker chamber of the story: danger rendered through belief, fear and the structures people build around both. The excerpt experience can bring selected scenes to life without giving away the larger mystery.

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What would you ask Hypatia?

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Lukman Clark

About the author

Lukman Clark

An award-winning author, artist and screenwriter exploring visionary fiction, magical realism, philosophy and the mysteries that live just beyond certainty.

An excerpt from

Hypatia: In Her Own Words

Seemingly carved into this backdrop was a massive head of a great beast in profile. Like something from a nightmare, its open jaws were lined with sharp teeth as large as my hand. The place where the enormous eyes would be were but cavernous holes. The same for the nostrils. I realized then this was a skull, sepulchral and lording over the dead humans in its immensity. I had no doubt such a dire maw might swallow me whole.

Trailing from the head and likewise embedded in the rock was a bone-like structure, something like a spine or tail disappearing into the rock only to reappear farther down from the head. A protuberance like a prodigious clawed foot near the bottom of the rock face had nearly battered its way out, seeking a foothold in the world of the living.

All Amma and I could hear at this time was the beating of our own hearts, which pounded out the same message:

Escape!

We went back to the entrance as quickly as the rubble—strewn aisle with its human detritus would permit. Before entering the great crevasse, I swung around for a last look. Stammering, I appealed to Amma,
“But, who? Why?”
Amma yanked hard on my arm, but not before I saw or imagined I saw someone moving among the shadows. Once we had descended the ravine and regained the trail eastward, Amma said in a voice like I had never heard from her before,
“Catherine, you ask who would do such things? This is some devil’s notion of a church. Yes, someone’s idea of a church, where a monster is worshipped and the books are written in blood on the hides of we poor mortals.

“Be wary, Catherine. You can be sure if you have not encountered this demon yet, you will. You will, for so it is prophesized.”

Lukman Clark
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