Emily Wilson to Retranslate 'The Odyssey' a Decade After Landmark Version

Emily Wilson, whose 2017 translation of Homer's Odyssey became a bestseller and a cultural talking point, is doing it again. But this is not a light revision — it's a complete retranslation, she says, and she's already halfway through.

Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, told Varta Wire in a recent interview that her methods have grown more sophisticated since the first edition. She now sees flaws in her earlier work, including an overuse of the word "slave" when ancient Greek had distinct terms for different categories of enslaved people. The new edition will be longer and will better capture the differing social worlds within Homer's poem.

Retranslating a full text so soon after a successful version is rare, says Kate Deimling, who heads the literary division of the American Translators Association. "I can't really come up with a previous example of this situation," she noted. While translators sometimes make corrections in later editions, a full retranslation is a different undertaking.

Wilson acknowledged that her decision was "very controversial" with her publisher, Liveright. She is aware that having two recent editions by the same translator will challenge teachers, and she hopes they won't "curse" her name. Her editor, Peter Simon, said in a statement that her new approach is "bound to be thrilling."

The 2017 translation, praised for making the epic more accessible and modern, also drew criticism online for being "woke." It has sold over a million copies. Wilson's fame has only grown with the release of Christopher Nolan's film adaptation, which cited her opening line — "Tell me about a complicated man" — as inspiration. Wilson, however, has called the movie grandiose, superficial, and at times incoherent, sparking debate that even drew in novelist Joyce Carol Oates.

Wilson's new essay collection, Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea, arrives Tuesday. It includes a long section on translating The Odyssey, with critiques of modern editions by Daniel Mendelsohn and the late Robert Fagles. Other essays address the "slut-shaming" of Helen of Troy, pay tribute to the Roman poet Catullus, and trace how Robert F. Kennedy's famous quoting of Aeschylus echoed Edith Hamilton's mistranslation.

In the interview, Wilson also discussed her discomfort with celebrity, her criticism of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson books, and her renewed interest in Stoic philosophy. She reflected on the limits of control over her work's reception, saying, "I'm going to be misunderstood. I'm going to be misread. People are going to hate me. I've got to accept that."