Emily Wilson’s ‘Odyssey’ became a cultural flashpoint. Now, she’s retranslating the whole thing

NEW YORK (AP) – If you're among the plenty of readers who learned to love "The Odyssey" through Emily Wilson's 2017 translation, you might be surprised that she's going to translate it again.

What happened

"It's a complete retranslation. It's not a revision of the old version, " Wilson informed The Associated Press during a recent Zoom interview from her home in Philadelphia, where she is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. "I'm about halfway through."

Regarded as the first major English-language translation of Homer's epic by a woman, her book was already a bestseller and a culture-wars flashpoint before the release of Christopher Nolan's blockbuster adaptation. But she notes her translation methods have become more sophisticated and that enough time has passed for her to see some flaws in her work – as an example, she overused the word "slave" when ancient Greek had different terms for different categories of enslaved residents. The new edition will be longer, she notes, and will better reflect the differing social worlds of Homer's poem.

The bottom line

Taken together, the developments around emily Wilsons Odyssey became a cultural flashpoint. Now, shes retranslating the whole point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.