Books by B. P. Reardon (translator)
“This is a really fun text. It’s in two books, and the narrator, who’s completely unreliable, ends by promising to give us lots more of the story, which he doesn’t. It’s a true story in the sense that it’s a complete lie. The narrator starts off by suggesting he’ll be just like other historians, or just like Odysseus in the Odyssey … I included it on the list not just because the whole thing is a playful re-write of the wandering books of the Odyssey, but also because in the second book, the narrator goes to the Elysian Fields and encounters both Homer and Odysseus.” Read more...
Emily Wilson, Classicist
Interviews where books by B. P. Reardon (translator) were recommended
The best books on The Odyssey, recommended by Emily Wilson
The Odyssey has been constantly rewritten by centuries of writers, but like so much of Greek myth, it's always already open to revising its own narrative. Emily Wilson, Professor of Classics at the University of Pennsylvania and the first woman to translate the Odyssey into English, recommends the best books to read after (or alongside) the Ancient Greek epic, and offers sage wisdom about both translating ancient epics and why everyone can learn from the Odyssey today.
