The book is a biography of King Alexander the Great, (356-323 BCE/BC), ruler of Macedon, Egypt and Persia. Renault wrote several historical novels in which Alexander appears: The Mask of Apollo (1966), Fire from Heaven (1969), The Persian Boy (1972) and Funeral Games (1981). She felt these were not enough to tell the whole story of Alexander, and so she completed her nonfiction biography. Nonfiction. Source: Wikipedia.