'Odyssey' Translator Emily Wilson Is Starting Over After Calling Christopher Nolan's Blockbuster Film 'Abysmal'

Nine years after publishing the first complete English translation of Homer’s 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 that she is retranslating the epic poem from scratch. The undertaking, which she says 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. Hall also praised Wilson for providing “exceptionally rich resources for the reader, whether with previous knowledge of Homer or none: maps, a glossary, genealogies and 100 pages of explanatory notes.” Kate Deimling, who oversees the literary division of the American Translators Association, says Wilson’s new project is practically unprecedented.

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 best-seller list. But Wilson has repeatedly criticized the hit film’s storytelling and plot.

Its narrative structure is gimmicky. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.” Only a few details of Wilson’s retranslation, still a few years away from completion, are yet known.

She tells the AP that she now thinks her original translation overused the word “slave” when more specific terms for different categories of enslaved people would have been more accurate. Wilson says the opening sentence of her first translation—“Tell me about a complicated man,” which Nolan specifically cited—will “probably” remain unchanged. Christian Thorsberg is an environmental writer and photographer from Chicago.

His work, which often centers on freshwater issues, climate change and subsistence, has appeared in Circle of Blue, Sierra magazine, Discover magazine and Alaska Sporting Journal.