Yann Martel

Retellings, though, never original material.

It took years later for me to get to finally read the Iliad.

I was a late reader of Homer.

So I read it in a sense out of ignorance, but also maturity, which was a good combination.

I tend to read these big, big books between projects, because otherwise I get pulled out of my orbit.

Like if you're a young writer, you want to be careful when you read people like Kafka or Hemingway or Virginia Woolf, because you're going to start writing Kafkaesque, Hemingwayesque, Woolfesque stories.

You'll be pulled out of your orbit.

These big monuments I read between projects.

So I read the Iliad after I'd finished my previous book.

And my partner said, oh, I just came upon this really good translation.

It was the first time she actually managed to read the Iliad.

Because you can get, some of the translations are, I'm sure, very good if you're at university and you have professors to sort of help you.

But if you're just reading it for the pleasure of a lecture, of a reading, some are quite deadening.

So it was a Stephen Mitchell translation.

He's a wonderful American poet.

Terrific, lean, propulsive translation of the Iliad.

And I read it and I loved it.

It wasn't at all what I expected.

So The Iliad is surprisingly not about the whole 10-year war.

It's in fact about 52 days in the 10th year of the war.