Irene de Jong was born in Leiden in 1957.[3] She studied at the University of Amsterdam from 1978 until 1982, and taught Classics at the Stedelijk Gymnasium in Utrecht in 1982–83.[4] In 1984 she worked as a research fellow at the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. She wrote her dissertation, 'Narrators and focalizers: the presentation of the story in the Iliad',[3] at the University of Amsterdam under a grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) from 1985 until 1987.[1] She then continued to work at the University of Amsterdam, first as a postdoc and later as a research fellow.
Since 2002 she has held the chair of Ancient Greek at the University of Amsterdam.[1]
Narrators and focalizers: the presentation of the story in the Iliad. Amsterdam 1987. Nachdruck Amsterdam 2004[10]
Narrative in drama: the art of the Euripidean messenger-speech. Leiden 1991 (Mnemosyne Supplement 116)[11]
with J. P. Sullivan: Modern critical theory and classical literature. Leiden 1994 (Mnemosyne Supplement 130)
A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey. Cambridge 2001[12]
Studies in ancient Greek narrative. Vol. 1: Narrators, narratees, and narratives in ancient Greek literature. Leiden 2004 (Mnemosyne Supplement 257)[13]
with Albert Rijksbaron: Sophocles and the Greek language: aspects of diction, syntax and pragmatics. Leiden 2006 (Mnemosyne Supplement 269)
Studies in ancient Greek narrative. Vol. 2: Time in ancient Greek literature. Leiden 2007 (Mnemosyne Supplement 291)
Studies in ancient Greek narrative. Vol. 3: Space in ancient Greek literature. Leiden 2012 (Mnemosyne Supplement 39)
Homer Iliad Book XXII. Cambridge 2012
I classici e la narratologia. Guida alla lettura degli autori greci e latini. Roma 2017.