Homer, "Ulysses and the Cyclops" (trans. Alexander Pope) (Greece)

It’s December 5. Welcome back to the 2021 Short Story Advent Calendar—a literary globetrotting adventure featuring 25 stories from 25 different countries.

Our editor, Alberto Manguel, is providing daily commentary on each of the stories he selected for this year’s calendar.

Here he is on Book IX of Homer’s Odyssey, translated from the Greek by Alexander Pope:

The Odyssey, written by a poet (or poets) traditionally known as Homer,  can be read as an obstacle race with Odysseus as the athlete, and the God Poseidon as the obstacle-setter in the ever-delayed route towards home. After the Fall of Troy and the return of the Greeks, each to his own homeland, Odysseus (or Ulysses as the Romans called him) finds that the way back to Ithaca and his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus is delayed again and again. One of the most horrific moments in his voyage is the encounter with the cannibal one-eyed giants that Greek mythology named the Cyclops, from whom Ulysses manages to escape with a device worthy of a modern detective tale.

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What did you think of today's story? Use the hashtag #ssac2021 on Twitter and Instagram to check in with your fellow advent calendarians. And check back tomorrow for commentary on the next story!