The Odyssey: A Mythical Journey Through The Real World

A map of real life locations in The Odyssey, written by Laura Coffey, designed and illustrated by Vanessa Lovegrove.

Nearly three thousand years after Homer wrote his epic poem, The Odyssey is finding a new audience, thanks to Christopher Nolan's film adaptation. This guide brings that mythological world into the present day, plotting real-life locations for where Odysseus and his crew travelled, matching monster-haunted islands and cursed straits to places you can visit.

The suggestions are informed by centuries of scholarship. Hisarlik in north-western Turkey was excavated by the dynamite-loving archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann and is now recognised under UNESCO protection as the site of Troy. One scholar pins the man-eating Laestrygonians to northern Sardinia, home to eight-foot Nuragic giant statues unearthed in the 1970s. Then there's Stromboli, still erupting regularly enough to have convinced the Greeks a god lived there, and the Strait of Messina, whipped by currents still notorious enough to explain Scylla and Charybdis. A cast of characters at the back runs through the gods, mortals and monsters for anyone who needs reminding who did what to whom.

The guide comes in a fold-out format with 10 A5 panels, litho-printed in Sussex on sustainably sourced 300gsm stock.