2026 Day of Translation: Keynote Conversation with Emily Wilson

Thursday, 7:00 pm EDT September 24, 2026

The Center for Fiction
& Livestreamed

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The Center for the Art of Translation presents the seventh annual Day of Translation in partnership with The Center for Fiction in Brooklyn. Whether you are a literary translator, an avid reader, or simply curious about the movement of ideas across languages and cultures, come celebrate the deeply human art of translation with us. This year’s program features dynamic panels and insightful conversations, culminating in a keynote address with Emily Wilson.

A revolutionary force in translation, Emily Wilson gives epic stories like The Odyssey and The Iliad back to us in a way that feels shockingly alive, urgent, and radically human.

Her latest book, Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature, wrestles with the frustrations and joys of the art of translation, offering a playful, fascinating voyage where the ancient world collides directly with pop culture. By examining how modern concepts of gender, violence, power, and sexuality clash with ancient texts—from the “slut-shaming” of Helen of Troy to the obscenities of Aristophanes—Wilson warns against treating antiquity as a mere mirror of our modern selves.

In this keynote, she will build upon these themes, diving into how revisiting classic works allows us to shift our perceptions and interpretations of the texts themselves, and of the process and power of translation. Whether you know her for the propulsive iambic pentameter of her Homeric verse, or you are eager to engage with new reflections on how language constantly renews history, you are in for an extraordinary evening.

The keynote is a paid ticketed event (in-person or livestream), and every ticket includes a signed copy of Emily Wilson’s Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea. In-person tickets guarantee a seat, and Wilson will personalize books after the event. In-person tickets also include an invitation to the Community Afterparty.

By registering for this co-presented event, you agree to share your information with The Center for Fiction and The Center for the Art of Translation.

Pricing inclusive of sales tax if applicable.

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Featuring

  • emily wilson c. eric sucar

    Emily Wilson

    Emily Wilson

    Emily Wilson is Department Chair and professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, holding the College for Women Class of 1963 Term Professor in the Humanities. Wilson attended Oxford University (Balliol College BA in Classics and Corpus Christi College MPhil in Renaissance English Literature) and Yale University (PhD in Classics and Comparative Literature). She has been named a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome in Renaissance & Early Modern scholarship, a MacArthur Fellow, and a Guggenheim Fellow. She is an editor on the Norton Anthology of World Literature. She has published four books and many essays and articles, as well as verse translations of Seneca, Sophocles, Euripides, and Homer. She lives in Philadelphia.


    Photo Credit: Eric Sucar

Featured Book

  1. . 
    crossing the wine dark sea

    Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea: Journeys Through Ancient Literature

    By Emily Wilson

    Published by Liveright

    PURCHASE

    In this sharp and often entertaining tour through antiquity, Emily Wilson—whose renditions of Homer’s The Odyssey and The Iliad have captured a generation’s imagination—explores the complicated terrain of reading and writing about the ancient past. Drawing on twenty years of scholarship and teaching, Wilson explores the difficult choices that translators must make, the pleasures of finding new solutions to old problems, and the inevitable frustrations of never fully capturing what is in the original work. Across chapters that range from the politics of Helen of Troy to the obscenities of Aristophanes, from Roman imitation of Greek models to contemporary debates over “foreignizing” and “domesticizing” styles, Wilson examines how modern norms of gender, sexuality, violence, humor, and power complicate our readings of ancient works, and how translation always risks denaturing what is unique and strange about the ancient world. Brilliant, erudite, and yet accessible to readers with no classical background, Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea is at once an introduction to the wonders of Greek and Roman literature, a manifesto for the value of translation in a rapidly changing world, and an invitation to encounter ancient cultures anew.

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