Reading Groups

Homer's The Odyssey with Lila Azam Zanganeh

8 Sessions Saturdays, 12:00 pm EDT - 1:30 pm EDT March 15 to June 28, 2025

Online via Zoom

The ‘With Books’ option includes the title required for this group at an additional 10% discount from our Bookstore.

Meeting Dates:
3/15, 3/29, 4/12, 4/26, 5/10, 5/31, 6/14, 6/28
Online via Zoom

We will explore The Odyssey—the story of a complicated man who spends twenty years searching for home—in its contemporary and only English translation by a woman.

The translation, which has garnered rave reviews, crackles with lightness and humor and dizzying depth all at once. Reading The Odyssey in Emily Wilson’s erudite and irreverent translation allows us to access the ancient song in a 21st century beat. We will look, as if through the bright well of a microscope, at its structure, language and epic beauty. We will analyze its extraordinary resonance in our culture today, but also its many mysteries. Why the color blue never appears in the poem, why every epoch folds into Homer a certain vision of the world, and above all, why Odysseus, his quest, his overarching desire, have taken center stage for nearly 3,000 years in the human imagination.

What to read in advance of the first meeting: Homer’s The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson, the first two books (i.e. chapters)

What to expect from this reading group: The course will be structured book by book, and both instructor and participant-driven.

Reading List:

Homer’s The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson

Capacity: 20

Please note: All virtual classes are recorded. Please click here for information about our recording policy.

Led by

Lila Azam Zanganeh

Lila Azam Zanganeh

Lila Azam Zanganeh was born in Paris to Iranian parents. After studying literature and philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure, she moved to the United States to teach literature and cinema at Harvard University. She has contributed criticism, interviews and essays to a host of publications including the New York Times, the New Yorker, Le Monde, La Repubblica, and the Paris Review. Her first book, The Enchanter: Nabokov and Happiness, was the recipient of the Roger Shattuck Prize, delivered by the Center For Fiction, and published worldwide in thirteen languages. Lila serves as a Director on the Board of Trustees for the Vladimir Nabokov Literary Foundation and as a member of the Advisory Board of Libraries Without Borders. She has also served as a judge for the Man Booker Prize and the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. Her forthcoming novel, Exit Paradise, will be published in 2026.

About this series

Reading Groups

Whether you’re looking to catch up on great novels or you’re interested in exploring a new writer or literary period, our reading groups offer high-level literary discussion led by experts in the field.

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