Translator whose Odyssey line inspired Nolan’s film is redoing book

Emily Wilson, the classicist whose 2017 translation of Homer’s “The Odyssey” became a bestseller and a flashpoint in the culture wars, is throwing out that version and starting over.

Ms. Wilson told the Associated Press that the new edition is “a complete retranslation” rather than a touch-up of the old one, and that she is roughly halfway finished. A professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, she said her methods have grown more sophisticated since 2017 and that she now sees flaws in her earlier work — for instance, she overused the word “slave” where ancient Greek distinguished between different categories of enslaved people. The new edition will run longer and aim to better capture the social complexity of Homer’s world.

The move is unusual in the translation world. Kate Deimling, who oversees the literary division of the American Translators Association, said she could not think of a precedent for a translator scrapping and redoing a full-length work this successful within a decade of finishing it. Asked how her publisher responded, Ms. Wilson said the decision was “very controversial,” and that she is aware two competing editions from the same translator could complicate life for teachers.

Ms. Wilson’s original translation is best known outside academic circles for its opening line, “Tell me about a complicated man,” which Christopher Nolan has cited as an inspiration for his “Odyssey” film adaptation. She said she will likely leave that line unchanged in the retranslation, but the admiration has not been mutual: Ms. Wilson has called Mr. Nolan’s movie grandiose, superficial and at times incoherent in interviews and in an assessment for the London Review of Books. Novelist Joyce Carol Oates weighed in against Ms. Wilson over the dispute, faulting her “haughty superiority,” while Mr. Nolan has criticized “amateur criticism” of the film without naming Ms. Wilson directly.

The retranslation news arrives alongside Ms. Wilson’s new essay collection, “Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea,” due Tuesday from Liveright with blurbs from Salman Rushdie and Madeline Miller. The book includes a section critiquing modern Homer translations by Daniel Mendelsohn and the late Robert Fagles, along with essays on Helen of Troy, the Roman poet Catullus and Stoic philosophy.