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Stephen Fry

Odyssey

Hay Festival 2025, 

The Hay Festival President weaves together the final fabulous threads of the tapestry he began in Mythos and continued in Heroes and Troy. The most famous heroic story of all time, Homer’s Odyssey is full of monsters, murder, maelstroms, gods, giants, wit, wisdom – and the most cunning hero of them all: Odysseus.

After ten years of war and the final fall of Troy, the victorious Greeks head home. Odysseus dreams of returning to his beloved wife and son. But sea god Poseidon has other plans for our hero. From titanic whirlpools to hypnotic sirens, and from seductive witches to jealous goddesses, Odysseus is tempted and tormented beyond any man’s endurance. Yet the lure of his family draws him, step by step, closer to home and his destiny.