His first book project, "Ovid’s Metamorphoses: A New Translation," was published in November 2023 by UC Press. The translation was recently shortlisted for the 2024 National Translation Award in Poetry, recognizing “literary translators who have made an outstanding contribution to literature in English by masterfully recreating the artistic force of a book of consummate quality.” The award citation praised Soucy’s work for capturing the original text’s “poetry, wit, subversive nature, and extravagant literary devices.” 

As an English major, Soucy discovered a love of ancient literature within the classrooms in Scheide Caldwell, East Pyne, and McCosh. It was ultimately his Latin coursework that inspired his first book. In this Q&A, he discusses his motivations and methodologies, and the Princeton path that led him to this work.

To start, tell me a little bit about Ovid’s "Metamorphoses"

Ovid’s Metamorphoses is one of the keystones of not only Roman literature, but European literature, and even modern literature, as defined in various ways. Although it’s a Latin text rather than a Greek one, when people talk about Greek or classical mythology, they are usually talking about stories from this book: in the Western tradition, its influence is really only comparable to Shakespeare and the Bible. At the same time, it’s fascinatingly irreverent. If you look at the versions of myths predating Ovid, you can tell he was changing all sorts of things. And in this current moment where we’re very interested in classical myth, but also in retelling those myths, it’s amazing that this one text stands as the origin point both for the stories themselves and that drive to adapt them.