'The Odyssey's Harshest Critic Is Writing Her Own Version Again

Published Sep 4, 2026, 6:15 AM EDT Erin is a Books & Literature Writer for Collider. She received her MA in English at LSU New Orleans, where she specialized in Disability Studies and maximized her Gothic literature obsession. She once aspired to be a ghost hunter, but has now settled into the writer’s life. A Pushcart-nominated poet and proud Piscean, if she’s not feverishly writing, you can find her stress baking, swimming, and adding to her tarot card deck collection. Homer's epic poem is getting an epic do-over. Scholar and classicist Emily Wilson, who made literary history as the first woman to translate The Odyssey into English, is returning to the text for a second translation. In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Wilson confirmed that she is halfway through the new project. Wilson's first take on Homer, published in 2017, was widely acclaimed for its more modern, accessible verse. Her translation unsurprisingly resurged as a bestseller this summer in tandem with Christopher Nolan's record-breaking blockbuster. In 2025, Nolan cited Wilson's translation, which famously opens with, "Tell me about a complicated man," while illuminating his approach to Odysseus (Matt Damon). Wilson's decision to retranslate The Odyssey from scratch, less than a decade after her first go-around, is largely unheard of in the publishing world. Her impetus for tackling another full-length translation of the epic, by her account, seems to boil down to perfectionism and academic evolution. Now finding flaws in her previous work, Wilson has decided to go back to the drawing board rather than spot-revise. Wilson says that her retranslation will be longer and will better capture the varied stratification of enslaved people in the epic, which she feels was flattened in her first translation. Emily Wilson Took Aim at Christopher Nolan's Adaptation Image via W.W. Norton & Company Both Emily Wilson and Christopher Nolan have brought fresh attention and interest to The Odyssey, but their distinct approaches and perspectives are now increasingly pitted against one another, especially after Wilson's headline-making movie review. Published in The London Review of Books, Wilson's scathing analysis of Nolan's The Odyssey ​​​​​​set off quite a firestorm. Wilson critiqued Nolan's adaptation as "an action movie version of Homer's ancient Greek poem" that leans more into spectacle while sacrificing "psychological, emotional, political, and ethical depth." Her review also found issues with Nolan's underwritten female characters. Wilson's rather unflinching roast of Nolan's work vexed cinephiles and academics alike. Prolific writer and literary critic Joyce Carol Oates notably came to Nolan's defense following Wilson's viral review, which generated so much traffic that The London Review of Books website crashed. The ensuing online debate, however charged, has only further emphasized the interpretive flexibility of Homer's epic, both on and off-screen. Despite her harsh takedown of Nolan's work, Wilson did conclude her review by expressing gratitude toward the director for "doing his best to get the general public reading again." In that sense, Wilson and Nolan are still, ultimately, on the same team. Whatever their disagreements over how the classic should be interpreted and adapted, they both demonstrate that The Odyssey, and, by extension, the humanities, are worth the time, the effort, and the funding. Nolan has put Homer on the biggest screen imaginable, filling theaters with audiences eager for an immersive (albeit ear-splitting) cinematic experience, and Wilson is now returning to the text she has dedicated her life and career to, championing a new translation of the Homeric epic for generations of readers to come.