Emily Wilson Talks Complicated Men, Celebrating Strangeness, and Why There is Always Another Way to Say It

In 2017, Emily Wilson became the first woman to publish a complete English translation of Homer’s Odyssey, a foundational work of Western literature composed around the 8th century BCE.

The Odyssey is an ancient Greek epic poem attributed to Homer, telling the story of Odysseus, a hero returning home after the Trojan War—a conflict that lasted ten years and is recounted in Homer’s other epic, the Iliad.

Wilson’s translation is notable for its accessibility, as it uses modern English to render the original Greek text, which dates back nearly 3,000 years.

This work earned her widespread recognition in the field of classics, a branch of humanities that studies ancient Greek and Roman cultures, languages, and texts.

Wilson’s achievement challenged the long-standing tradition of male-dominated translations of classical works, which had persisted for centuries.