The Iliad

By: Homer, Emily Wilson - translator

Narrated by: Audra McDonald

2024 Audie Award Winner for Literary Fiction & Classics

When Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey appeared in 2017―rendering the ancient poem in contemporary language 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.

Brought to life in vivid audio form, this crisp verse translation of 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 deities’ grand schemes beyond the ken of mortals.

Wilson’s musical iambic pentameter verse is brought to life in the evocative voice of narrator and Broadway legend Audra McDonald. In her thrilling reading, this magical and often horrifying tale gallops at a pace befitting its legendary battle scenes. 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.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Emily Wilson (Translation) (P)2023 Audible, Inc.

Effective Translation Of A Rather Boring Text

Perhaps Eminem described The Iliad best: "HI KIDS, DO YOU LIKE VIOLENCE? / WANNA SEE ME STICK NINE INCH NAILS THROUGH EACH ONE OF MY EYELIDS?" Wilson apologizes in the introduction that there aren't more words for "spear" because it comes up so often in this text, but Homer shows us that the number of places that spear can go in the human body (or in the ground, if altered in its flight by one of the deathless gods) is limitless! The combat is plentiful but not very strategic--the most interesting part of the many battlefield scenes is the ways that The Gods can intervene in subtle & not so subtle ways. Indeed, one of the biggest takeaways from the book is how fickle and petulant The Gods were seen to be. Besides the battles, the rest of the book is mostly about how petulant and exasperating humans can be.

If you do want to engage with this text, for a couple of reasons it might be better to read rather than listen to. First, while Audra McDonald does a great job of conveying gravitas (especially when characters are enraged or inconsolable), she does not differentiate the characters that much (and Homer doesn't help--all of the characters like to speechify in very similar ways), so it's easy to get lost if you space out and miss the identifying tag at the beginning of a diatribe. The other issue is that Emily Wilson has apparently painstakingly replicated Homer's naturalistic tone in order to give us an equivalent experience to that of the original audience . . . which means that it's hard to appreciate all the work she put into refashioning the text into iambic pentameter without seeing the line breaks.

Wilson's scholarly introduction really brings across the care she took with the translation, but while it does provide some valuable context for contemporary readers, it's hard not to call it a bit excessive . . . even if it is ultimately more interesting than the text it describes.

A classic made modern

After deciding to catch up on classics I’d never read growing up, and happening upon Emily Wilson’s translation of the Odyssey to start, I was so surprised at how accessible and entertaining it was that I waited anxiously for this release like it was the latest Harry Potter book. I just couldn’t settle for a stuffy, pretentious translation and reading of the Iliad after such a great experience with such a wonderful modern language translation and performance of the Odyssey. And it was worth the wait! I can’t recommend it enough to anyone else like me who wants to get to know these classics in a way that’s easy to understand and enjoy.

the most accessible translation

Emily Wilson brings the original text to life. excellently delivered by Audra McDonald. Well worth a listen

Great translation!

Easy to understand and beautifully presented. Highly recommend. A good introduction to Homer as well as a great reminder to those familiar with the first of these two works.

Good Modern Translation

This is a good version of The Iliad, but the long intro wasn’t really necessary.