The Odyssey by Homer, trans. Emily Wilson, 582 pages.
I don't feel any great need to give a long summary of a story that is several thousands of years old. Odysseus has a hard time getting home after the Trojan War, and once he does he has more trouble there. What I will say is that this is a very good translation. Wilson does an excellent job interrogating the conventions of translating the Odyssey and examining whether or not they actually contribute to a better translation of the original story. This results, most notably, in a text written in much more accessible language, as well as grappling more directly with all of the slavery in this book. I absolutely recommend reading her essays in the introduction, which I read mostly after I finished the main text of the book, but which could also be valuable if you read them before. I believe Emily Wilson is working on a translation of the Iliad right now, and I definitely plan to pick that one up when it's done.
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