Little is known about the poet Homer but he is thought to have composed THE ILIAD and THE ODYSSEY - the first extant works of Western literature - in the second half of the eighth century BC, and according to tradition lived on the island of Chios in the east Aegean.
Stephen Mitchell is a bestselling translator. His translation of Gilgamesh sold over 800, 000 copies in the States and was described by Harold Pinter as 'a revelation'.
He also received great acclaim for his translations of the Bhagavad Gita, the Tao Te Ching, Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus and the Book of Job. He was educated at Amherst College, the Sorbonne and Yale University.