Author(s): Homer (translated by Emily Wilson)

Novel | Poetry | Greece

After an invocation to the Muses, the story launches in medias res towards the end of the Trojan War between the Trojans and the besieging Greeks. Chryses, a Trojan priest of Apollo, offers the Greeks wealth for the return of his daughter Chryseis, held captive by Agamemnon, the Greek leader. Although most of the Greek army is in favour of the offer, Agamemnon refuses. Chryses prays for Apollo's help, and Apollo causes a plague to afflict the Greek army.

When Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017 - revealing the ancient poem in a contemporary idiom that was "fresh, unpretentious and lean" (Madeline Miller,Washington Post) - critics lauded it as "a revelation" (Susan Chira,New York Times) and "a cultural landmark" (Charlotte Higgins,Guardian) that would forever change how Homer is read in English. Now Wilson has returned with an equally revelatory translation of Homer's other great epic-the most revered war poem of all time.

The Iliad roars with the clamor of arms, the bellowing boasts of victors, the fury and grief of loss, and the anguished cries of dying men. It sings, too, of the sublime magnitude of the world-the fierce beauty of nature and the gods' grand schemes beyond the ken of mortals. In Wilson's hands, this thrilling, magical, and often horrifying tale now gallops at a pace befitting its legendary battle scenes, in crisp but resonant language that evokes the poem's deep pathos and reveals palpably real, even "complicated," characters - both human and divine.

The culmination of a decade of intense engagement with antiquity's most surpassingly beautiful and emotionally complex poetry, Wilson's Iliad now gives us a complete Homer for our generation.

Review: "Wilson's translation runs as swift as a bloody river, teems with the clattering sounds of war, bursts with the warriors' hunger for battle" -- Charlotte Higgins - The Guardian
"Wilson's Iliad is clear and brisk, its iambic pentameter a zone of enchantment. " -- Ange Mlinko - London Review of Books
"Superb... [a] beautiful, fluent, memorable translation" -- Rowan Williams - New Statesman
"Seduce[s] with its crystalline clarity, elegance, sensuality, sometimes breathless pace and above all emotional clout." -- Edith Hall - The Guardian
"A triumphant new translation of the Iliad... It's a poem you read with your heart in your throat. " -- A. E. Stallings - The Spectator
"A propulsive road... an excellent translation" -- Natalie Haynes - BBC Culture
"Sing, goddess, of the skill of Emily [Wilson]." -- Robbie Millen - The Times
"Vitally urgent" -- Judith Thurman - The New Yorker
"For the Greeks, Homer was the universal poet. He was likened to the ocean, circling the world, from which all cultural rivers flowed... Two thousand years later, those rivers still flow. Wilson can take much pride in her successful contribution to this mighty stream" -- Peter Jones - The Times
"Emily Wilson's superb rendering of the Greek epic resounds with Miltonic echoes" -- The Telegraph
"Emily Wilson's translation of the "Iliad" brings Homer's great war story to rousing new life....propulsive....buoyant and expressive. " -- Natalie Haynes - The New York Times Book Review
"In Wilson's hands, the poem sings with the clash of bronze, the thundering of hooves, the savage holler of war-cries. Her use of iambic pentameter imbues it with irresistible pace and rhythm. It flows like music - exhilarating, tragic, beautiful and stirring" -- Jennifer Saint - the i newspaper
"Wilson is at her best when writing of the battlefield. As others have noted, she has a knack for the consonantal sounds of warfare... Wilson's Iliad is always to the point." -- Kate Maltby - Financial Times
"Wilson's translation is vivid, lucid, pacy... For those yet to encounter this violent, charming, disturbing, beautiful poem, now is the time." -- Katherine Backler - The Tablet
"Excellent... [Wilson] achieves a fluid and consistent vision." -- Philip Womack - Spectator World
"Wilson has forged a poetic style in English that captures the essence of Homeric Greek....Readable, relevant and from the heart, this is the "Iliad" we have all been waiting for, whether we knew it or not."" -- Naoise Mac Sweeny - The Washington Post

Author Biography: Emily Wilson is a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance and early modern scholarship, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow. In addition to Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, she has also published translations of Sophocles, Euripides, and Seneca. She lives in Philadelphia.