![]() ![]() ![]() I’m suspicious of that idea: it tends to bolster the idea that the “objectively right” way is the way that the elite have always done it. My point isn’t that translators could or should be “objective,” if that means that there’s just one way to do things that counts as the right way. I don’t think anybody can avoid having biases, preferences, histories, interests, identities, thoughts, judgments, preferences. In your recent review of Barry Powell’s translation of ‘The Poems of Hesiod’ in the New York Review of Books, you critique the translator’s “gender bias.” What does it mean to have a gender bias when translating literature, and how do you avoid it in your own translation work? In this interview, we discuss how her identity as a woman-and a cis-gendered feminist-informs her translation work, how her Odyssey translation honors both ancient traditions and contemporary reading practices, and what Homer meant when he called Dawn, repeatedly, “rosy-fingered.” This interview has been edited slightly for length. Her brilliant new translation hit shelves in November. Her name is Emily Wilson (photo credit: Imogen Roth), and she’s a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. ![]() But only one of those translations is by a woman. T he Odyssey-the ancient Greek epic attributed to Homer-has been translated into English at least 60 times since the seventeenth century. ![]()
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