Gilgamesh - by Stephen Mitchell (Paperback)

About the Book

Finally available in paperback comes a brilliant new rendering of the oldest epic in the world by esteemed translator and bestselling author Mitchell.

Book Synopsis

Discover one of the masterpieces of world literature with this acclaimed edition that allows us to see how beautiful, intelligent, and alive it is.

Acclaimed translator Stephen Mitchell's lithe, muscular rendering of Gilgamesh allows us to enter an ancient masterpiece as if for the first time. His insightful introduction provides a historical, spiritual, and cultural context for this ancient epic, showing that this epic is more potent and fascinating than ever.

Gilgamesh dates from as early as 1700 BCE--a thousand years before The Iliad. Lost for almost two millennia, the eleven clay tablets on which the epic was inscribed were discovered in 1853 in the ruins of Nineveh, and the text was not deciphered and fully translated until the end of the century.

The epic is the story of literature's first hero--the king of Uruk in what is present-day Iraq--and his journey of self-discovery. Along the way, Gilgamesh discovers that friendship can bring peace to a whole city, that a preemptive attack on a monster can have dire consequences, and that wisdom can be found only when the quest for it is abandoned. In giving voice to grief and the fear of death, perhaps more powerfully than any book written after it, in portraying love and vulnerability and the ego's hopeless striving for immortality, the epic has become a personal testimony for millions of readers in dozens of languages.

Review Quotes

"A flowing, unbroken version that reads as effortlessly as a novel...with startlingly familiar hopes, fears, and lusts. Mitchell...cracks open the lessons in Gilgamesh by rebuilding its clay fragments into a poem easy on the eyes and the transcultural imagination....Vibrant, earnest, unfussily accessible.... The muscular eloquence and rousing simplicity of Mitchell's four-beat line effectively unleash the grand vehemence of the epic's battle scenes, and the characters' ominous visions emerge with uncanny clarity."

-- The New York Times Book Review

"Beautifully retold and a page-turner in the bargain. Like Seamus Heaney's recent retelling of Beowulf, this book proves that in the right hands, no great story ever grows stale."

-- Newsweek

"Seamus Heaney isn't the only one intent on making the classics relevant to our times. Mitchell...offers a limpid retelling of this story about absolute power.... Its message of love, loss, and endurance [is] rendered in fresh, forceful language."

-- Los Angeles Times

"The mysterious, sinewy surge of his verse [is] thoroughly modern, yet an uncanny evocation of the primeval."

-- The Boston Globe

"Utterly enthralling reading, thanks to Mr. Mitchell's skill and flair in recasting the ancient text."

-- The New York Sun