The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead

by Simon Armitage

A high-ranking government minister with a colourful past is sent on a diplomatic mission to Istanbul. When his trip ends up in a bar-room brawl, he becomes Europe's most wanted man overnight. Chased by the authorities, damned by religious leaders, pursued by those looking for vengeance and head-hunted by fanatics, his odyssey begins.

Plunged into the ancient past, Odysseus must now contend with all the unworldly beings and unnatural phenomena that stand in his way. The Cyclops, the Sirens, witches, whirlpools and flesh-eating armies must all be overcome in the struggle for survival and the long voyage back home.

Simon Armitage's The Odyssey: Missing Presumed Dead premiered at the Liverpool Everyman in September 2015 then toured the UK in a co-production with English Touring Theatre.

Genres: Plays

144 pages, Paperback

Published January 10, 2017

About the author

Simon Armitage, whose The Shout was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, has published ten volumes of poetry and has received numerous honors for his work. He was appointed UK Poet Laureate in 2019

Armitage's poetry collections include Book of Matches (1993) and The Dead Sea Poems (1995). He has written two novels, Little Green Man (2001) and The White Stuff (2004), as well as All Points North (1998), a collection of essays on the north of England. He has produced a dramatised version of Homer's Odyssey and a collection of poetry entitled Tyrannosaurus Rex Versus The Corduroy Kid (which was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize), both of which were published in July 2006. Many of Armitage's poems appear in the AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) GCSE syllabus for English Literature in the United Kingdom. These include "Homecoming", "November", "Kid", "Hitcher", and a selection of poems from Book of Matches, most notably of these "Mother any distance...". His writing is characterised by a dry Yorkshire wit combined with "an accessible, realist style and critical seriousness."

Reviews

[Fiona · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clever take on the Odyssey by a talented writer. I'm yet to come away from one of Simon Armitage's books feeling disappointed. A word of advice, though. Don't - as I did - read this straight after Armitage's earlier book, 'Homer's Odyssey'. This new book actually includes slabs of text taken from the previous one, which made perfect sense (why reinvent the wheel?), but even though I thoroughly enjoyed his first take on the Odyssey, the repeated text lost some of its appeal and power when reading it again within a couple of hours. I recommend leaving a much larger gap between these two books!

[Russio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Armitage weaves modern politics into The Odyssey, which he knows so well, to his usual comic effect. Only occasionally diverting from the thrust of the original, and never without reason, this is both homage and send-up at the same time. Fab.

[GiganBooks2022 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Listened to as part of the “Greek myths, modern retellings” audiobook by BBC. I did not enjoy the modern part of the story, the political game and the characters within it as well as the entire plot seemed somehow far fetched, difficult to understand and hard to feel engaged in. Which is funny, considering I was curious for the modern retelling part of the classic.. If I can in the future, I will instead go for Armitage’s other Odyssey retelling that seems to be fully based in the old world and which parts he has presumably reused in this piece - I liked those passages actually.

[Liwia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Smith: I’m not going. It’s my son’s birthday tomorrow.

P.M: He’ll have other birthdays.

Smith: This is his eighteenth.

P.M: So he’s had lots of birthdays already.

Smith: I missed them as well.