"Poets are not to blame for how things are.”

Joining HowTheLightGetsIn from Pennsylvania, Emily Wilson is a celebrated writer and classicist whose translations of Homer have reshaped how ancient literature reaches contemporary readers. In 2018, she became the first woman to translate Homer’s Odyssey into English verse; her acclaimed translation of The Iliad followed in 2023. She is Department Chair and Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where she holds the College for Women Class of 1963 Term Professorship in the Humanities.

She has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance & Early Modern scholarship, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow. Her forthcoming book, Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea, explores the enduring afterlives of Homer and the ways stories travel across time.

"Joyful, illuminating, and engrossing." — Madeline Miller