Translating the Iliad: webchat with Caroline Alexander – post your questions now

The latest translator of Homer’s masterpiece – the first woman to recreate it in English – will be here to answer your questions about tackling this ancient epic on Monday 29 February at 1pm. Join the discussion below

9.23am GMT

Caroline Alexander is an author and journalist who has written for the New Yorker, Granta and National Geographic and has several books to her name. These include The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty (2004), and The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition (1998). In 2009, she also published The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer’s Iliad and the Trojan War, which Tom Holland described here as “a worthy memorial to Homer’s poem: compassionate, urgent and unfailingly stimulating”.

Most recently, Alexander has translated the Iliad, which has to be the literary equivalent of climbing Everest. I’m also tempted to reach for another metaphor and suggest that wrestling with Homer must sometimes feel a bit like taking on Achilles himself – an almost impossible task, yet also the ultimate test … But she’ll be able to tell you her feelings about that on Monday 29 February at 1pm, when she joins us for a live webchat.

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