Wilson's Odyssey Translation Reaches Amazon Top 5 After Nolan Film Opens

Emily Wilson's 2017 translation of Homer's Odyssey climbed to the top five on Amazon.com after the release of Christopher Nolan's film The Odyssey. The movie opened the weekend of July 18-19, 2026. Nolan cited Wilson's rendering, particularly the opening line "Tell me about a complicated man," as an influence on the project.

The film casts Matt Damon as Odysseus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Tom Holland as Telemachus, Zendaya as Athena and Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy. Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, welcomed the renewed attention to the poem.

"I want to celebrate the fact that so many more people are aware of 'The Odyssey' and were brought back to the poem," she told The Associated Press.

She added that Nolan appeared to pack in elements while omitting themes she considers essential. Daniel Mendelsohn's review appeared Friday in The New York Review of Books. " He wrote that Nolan had "merely remade Homer’s hero in his own image," linking the character to figures in earlier Nolan films such as Memento and Oppenheimer.

Mendelsohn had earlier defended the casting of Nyong'o as Helen of Troy.