Gilgamesh

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

A reworking of the great epic, Gilgamesh. Like Seamus Heaney's Beowulf, this narrative poem brings to life a major work of ancient literature for a modern readership. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the first great book of man's heart. Inscribed onto clay tablets around 2400 BC, it enthralled the ancient world with a story of love, heroism, friendship, grief and defiance of the Gods. That it continues to speak to us today, despite its fragmentary state, is testimony to the power and humanity of its themes- King Gilgamesh's lament for his dead friend Enkidu is still among the most powerful poems of mourning in literature. Inspired by the universality of the Gilgamesh story, the poet Derrek Hines has produced a magnificent reworking of the epic, which brings it into a modern idiom whilst maintaining its timeless quality. His striking imagery breathes a new sensuality and vigour into the characters; his poised and energetic language moves seamlessly between the lyric and the bellicose, the comic and the tragic, the classical and the contemporary. Like Christopher Logue's War Music, or Seamus Heaney's Beowulf, this is a work that will communicate to today's reader the sheer excitement and wonder that its first audiences must have felt five thousand years ago.

Reviews

Impressive, consistent... packed with good things * Christoppher Logue *
Gilgamesh is Derrek Hines's version of the Gilgamesh Epic - not so much a translation as a vibrant and vigorous reimagining of the world's first book, which should take its place alongside Heaney's Beowulf and Hughes's Ovid on the shelf of revivified classics -- Adam Newey * New Statesman *
[Hines] has taken liberties with the epic poem and emerged with a radical, but alluring new poem of his own... a portrait of masculine belligerence, cloven in two * San Francisco Chronicle *
His flamboyance and daring make this a delight to read * The Washington Post *
For those whose curiosity is piqued by the recent rash of Gilgamesh translations and adaptations, this version by Canadian-born poet Derrek Hines offers a vivid, modern take * Globe and Mail *

Author Bio

Derrek Hines was born and raised in Canada and read Ancient Near Eastern Studies at university. He has won prizes in, among others, the National Poetry competition and the Arvon Foundation International competition. He currently lives on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall where, as well as writing poetry, he publishes a small list of distinguished poets under the Cargo Press imprint.