In this special hour-long edition of NYRSeminars recorded July 29, 2026, Daniel Mendelsohn, Editor-at-Large of The New York Review and author of the most recent translation of Homer’s epic, discusses Christopher Nolan’s polarizing blockbuster adaptation of the Odyssey. Mendelsohn outlines his judgment of the film, which he reviewed at length for the Review, and then opens the floor to questions from audience members. Among the topics addressed are the debate over the fidelity of the film’s sets, ships, and costumes; the film’s handling of its female characters; and the question of whether the director’s vision of Odysseus represents a betrayal of the epic’s values.

For a limited time, we are offering a special 25% discount code toward purchase of the recordings of Mendelsohn’s six-part Odyssey seminar as well as his classics-related books Three Rings, Ecstasy and Terror, and Waiting for the Barbarians, published by New York Review Books. Use the links above or the code “odysseyevent” at checkout in our shops to receive the discount.

Daniel Mendelsohn is an award-winning author, critic, essayist, and translator. His eleven books include the international bestsellers An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic and The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million; a translation, with commentary, of the Modern Greek poet Constantine Cavafy; and three collections of essays, most recently Ecstasy and Terror: From the Greeks to Game of Thrones (2018). Over the past thirty years. Mr. Mendelsohn has contributed over three hundred essays, reviews, articles, and translations to numerous publications, most frequently The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, where he is Editor-at-Large, and has been a columnist for The New York Times Book Review, New York magazine, and BBC Culture. His writing for mainstream publications covers a wide range of subjects, from Classical civilization to contemporary literature, as well as film, theater, opera, and television. Mr. Mendelsohn’s honors include the National Jewish Book Award, the National Book Critics’ Circle Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for Prose Style, the Society for Classical Studies Presidents’ Medal, Princeton University’s James Madison Medal, the Prix Médicis in France and the Malaparte Prize in Italy, that country’s highest literary honor for foreign authors. In 2022, he was made a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the Republic of France. Since 2019, he has been the director of the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, a charitable trust that supports writers of nonfiction, essay, and criticism.

Daniel Mendelsohn, the Charles Ranlett Flint professor of Humanities at Bard College, lives in the Hudson Valley of New York. His translation of Homer’s Odyssey was published by the University of Chicago Press in Spring 2025.