Classic Chats: Daniel Mendelsohn on translating the Odyssey

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Mary and Charlotte talk to Daniel Mendelsohn, one of America’s most revered classicists, whose new translation of the Odyssey was published last year. Daniel’s decision to translate the Odyssey occurred rather unusually. In 2011, his 82-year-old father decided to attend his weekly Odyssey seminar at Bard College. In his memoir An Odyssey: A Father, A Son, and an Epic (2017), Daniel recounts how through his father’s eyes he came to see the Odyssey differently - as well as their own relationship. In the book, he translated short passages which led to a commission from University of Chicago Press to translate the entire poem. Daniel talks about the decisions he made in his translation - and,…