Gilgamesh Retold: A Response to the Ancient Epic

Jenny Lewis provides the first ever translation of the Epic of Gilgamesh by a practicing female poet. She is also the first translator to deploy a variety of forms to deal with the different scenes and themes, using metre, rhyme and free verse as well as experimental forms to bring the poem alive, making it fully expressive and avoiding the macho approach of most male translators. Her previous collection Taking Mesopotamia, about her quest to find a father who perished in the wars of the Middle East, was woven with Gilgamesh lines and themes. Here she goes to the fountainhead and brings the poem to us in a brilliantly direct way.