Homer's epic chronicle of the Greek hero Odysseus' journey home from the Trojan War has inspired??writers from Virgil to James Joyce. Odysseus??survives storm and shipwreck, the cave of the Cyclops??and the isle of Circe, the lure of the Sirens' song??and a trip to the Underworld, only to find his??most difficult challenge at home, where treacherous??suitors seek to steal his kingdom and his loyal??wife, Penelope. Favorite of the gods, Odysseus??embodies the energy, intellect, and resourcefulness??that were of highest value to the ancients and that??remain ideals in out time.In this??new verse translation, Allen??Mandelbaum--celebrated poet and translator of Virgil's??Aeneid and Dante's Divine Comedy??--realizes the power and beauty of the original??Greek verse and demonstrates why the epic tale of??The Odyssey has captured the human??imagination for nearly three thousand??years.

Homer was a Greek poet, recognized as the author of the great epics, the Iliad, the story of the siege of Troy, and the Odyssey, the tale of Ulysses’s wanderings.Allen Mandelbaum was born in 1926 and died in 2011. His translations of Homer, Dante, Virgil, Quasimodo, and Ungaretti were all published to great acclaim. His rendering of The Aeneid won the National Book Award. He was the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Humanities at Wake Forest University, North Carolina.