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Return to Ithaca
5Eyvind Johnson
Johnson's 1946 working-class reworking of The Odyssey — shared the 1974 Nobel Prize; the Swedish autodidact novelist's most enduring book.
GBM Assessment (Score: 5/10)
Eyvind Johnson shared the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1974, recognized for a body of work shaped by his remarkable journey from working-class autodidact to one of Sweden's most accomplished novelists. Return to Ithaca reimagines Homer's Odyssey through a modern lens, using the ancient narrative as a framework for exploring the dislocations and moral dilemmas of contemporary life.
Crafted during the era of the Second World War in Sweden, Return to Ithaca reflects the anxieties of a neutral nation watching Europe consume itself in conflict. Johnson's retelling of the Homeric journey home becomes a meditation on exile, endurance, and the difficulty of returning to a world transformed by war.
Awards & Adaptations
NOBEL 1974 (shared).
Recommended Edition
Various trans.
