Golan Haji and Stephen Watts' poem drawing on the episode in which Odysseus is among people listening to a blind bard extolling the exploits of a wandering hero - Odysseus himself. Show more

In Karen McCarthy Woolf's drama in couplets, inspired by the Underworld episode in Homer, Odysseus's mother strives to contact her son, who is working a night shift as a cab driver. Show more

Circe turns Odysseus's men into pigs, the god Hermes gives him a herb to make him immune. Poet Inua Ellams turns this into a modern story of enchantment, desire and disenchantment. Show more

Zaffar Kunial's father comes from Kashmir but his response to the bag of winds story in The Odyssey blows him north to Orkney and back into a different family history. Show more

Odysseus heroically leaves to fight at Troy. In so doing he deserts his wife and, shamefully, his son, Telemachus. Sarah Howe explores the parallels with family life in China today. Show more

Reza Mohammadi, a leading poet in Persian, sets his response to Homer in Kabul. Places and events in Afghanistan's capital and environs chime compellingly with The Odyssey. Show more

On his return, Odysseus slaughters the suitors who have been pestering his wife. In Daljit Nagra's poem, Daag returns from Sheffield to fetch his beleaguered wife. He has a knife. Show more

Fleeing Bangladesh Mir Mahfuz Ali nearly drowned in a whirlpool. In his response to the Scylla and Charybdis episode in The Odyssey, an oud player makes a perilous sea voyage. Show more

Alemu Tebeje's poetic drama follows Tamrat from his idyllic boyhood in the mountains of Ethiopia through love, student protest to flight from the police, the big-eyed Cyclops. Show more

Odysseus takes so long to return because, maybe, he is not sure what home is. In the light of this, Mona Arshi tells the story of her parents' odyssey from the Punjab to Southall. Show more