Irene de Jong studied Classics at the University of Amsterdam, where she graduated in 1982. She was a stipendiate at the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae in Hamburg in 1983, wrote her PhD at the University of Amsterdam (1984-8), held post- doc positions there until she was appointed full professor of Ancient Greek (2003). She has been visiting professor at University College London and Yale.
She has supervised 7 PhD-theses and is currently supervising 6 more. She has been a member of 27 promotion- committees at universities in Holland and abroad (Oxford, Paris, Venice, Gent).
She has presented papers all over the world, is on the editorial board of the international journal Mnemosyne (including the Mnemosyne-supplements), and on the boards of Eirene and Ancient Narrative., and is a regular reviewer for OUP, CUP, and Brill.
She is member of the Academia Europaea and has been awarded two prizes (Praemium Erasmianum study-prize, C.C. Hodshon prize).
She has led two NWO –funded projects: ›Space in Ancient Greek narrative‹ and (with prof. C. Kroon) ›Ancient War Narrative: a combined discourse linguistic and narratological approach.‹ She has organized 6 international conferences.

• Greek literature
• Narratology
• Epic
• Drama
• Historiography
• Literary history

Author

• Narratology and Classics: a Practical Guide (Oxford, Oxford University Press 2014 ).
• Homer Iliad Book XXII (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2012).
• A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 2001). ›Metalepsis in Ancient Greek Literature,‹ in J. Grethlein, A. Rengakos (eds.) Narratology and Interpretation. The Content of Narrative Form in Ancient Literature. Trends in Classics 4 (Berlin, W. de Gruyter 2009), 87-115.
• Narrative in Drama. The Art of the Euripidean Messenger-Speech (Leiden, Brill 1991).
• Narrators and Focalizers. The Presentation of the Story in the Iliad (Amsterdam, Grüner 1987, second edition London, Duckworth 2004).

Editor

• Space in Ancient Greek Literature. Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative 3 (Leiden, Brill 2012).
• (mit R. Nünlist) Time in Ancient Greek Literature. Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative 2 (Leiden, Brill 2007).
• (mit R. Nünlist & A. Bowie) Narrators, Narratees, and Narratives in Ancient Greek Literature. Studies in Ancient Greek Narrative 1 (Leiden, Brill 2004).
• (mit E.J. Bakker & H. van Wees) Brill's Companion to Herodotus (Leiden, Brill 2002).