"I have a bit of an obsession with Gilgamesh, the earliest surviving work of literature, which comes to us in fragments. Not that people should be surprised if I owned a copy or two by different translators, but I have a whole shelf of adaptations and translations. There’s something I find compelling about the story: what makes a human(e) being, what constitutes bravery, how do we deal with loss, the transformative possibilities of love. I first got hooked with Herbert Mason’s adaptation, then found David Ferry’s excellent translation, Yusef Komunyakaa’s verse play, Gardner/Maier’s translation, Stephen Mitchell’s poetic interpretation. There’s even a graphic novel version by Kent and Kevin Dixon. The fact that the story has survived this long in so many renditions means I’m not the only one captivated by this ancient story."
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Julia Alvarez interview (2019)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Gilgamesh
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Gilgamesh
(Bilgames in the earliest texts) was a historical king of the ian city-state of Uruk, a major hero in ancient , and the protagonist of the Epic of Gilgamesh, an written in Akkadian during the late . He likely ruled between 2800 and 2500 BCE and was posthumously deified. He became a major figure in during the (c. 2112 – c. 2004 BCE).
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