Odysseus and the Promise of Homecoming

Odysseus reaches Ithaca at the end of a journey through storms, monsters and gods. Yet for Long Litt Woon, the return is not as simple as the myth promises. Even after 2,700 years, coming home remains difficult.

Homer's poem is built around everything that delays Odysseus's return. Its promise is reassuring: endure unimaginable dangers and something wonderful awaits. No matter how far someone travels, the myth suggests, there is a way back to a place where nobody questions whether they belong.

People who move know the limits of that promise. The home they left no longer exists in quite the same form, and whatever they became along the way does not disappear when they stand on familiar ground again. That applies to people crossing national borders, but also to those who move from one Norwegian city to another.

Woon connects Odysseus to her own life and to her book, "Siste Tango Hjem." She writes about how streets in Malaysia, once considered safe by her family, stopped feeling safe within days. The country changed while she slept. Her childhood forced her to recognize that the country of birth and the country one calls home are not automatically the same. Moving to Norway and choosing to stay did not resolve the question of where she belonged.

She also reflects on language. Woon writes in Norwegian, which she learned as an adult, and was struck by Emily Wilson's decision to translate the Greek word nostos as "home" rather than "homecoming." The first word describes a state, while the second emphasizes a journey toward a destination. Home, she suggests, is not fixed, and perhaps Odysseus himself was changed by everything he experienced.