Nine years after publishing the first complete English translation of Homer’s The Odyssey by a woman—and several weeks after emerging as a vocal critic of this summer’s blockbuster film adaptation—Emily Wilson, a classicist at the University of Pennsylvania, has announced she is retranslating the epic poem from scratch.
The undertaking, which Wilson said is already about halfway complete, will be a wholesale retranslation rather than a revision of her earlier version, published in 2017 and widely praised by critics.
“I’m now retranslating The Odyssey from scratch, with an approach closer to that of my translation of The Iliad, using somewhat more lines than the original, enabling more varied word length and pacing,” Wilson said in a statement.
Kate Deimling, who serves as administrator of the Literary Division of the American Translators Association, said Wilson’s new project is practically unprecedented. “It’s not unheard of for translators to go back and make some corrections or edits in subsequent editions, but that’s not the same as a retranslation.”
In recent weeks, it has been Wilson’s film criticism that has garnered widespread public attention. After her 2017 translation was cited by director Christopher Nolan as an inspiration for his adaptation of The Odyssey, released this summer, the book rocketed up the bestseller list. But Wilson has repeatedly criticized the hit film’s storytelling and plot.
“I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script,” she wrote in the London Review of Books in late July. “It lacks psychological, emotional, political, and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words.”
Smithsonian Magazine (8/31/26) By Christian Thorsberg