Derrek Hines does (for Gilgamesh) what West Side Story did for Romeo and Juliet
– The Times
Derrek Hines’s version of the Gilgamesh Epic is 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.
– The New Statesman
This version of Gilgamesh sounds like a rock band attacking a Bach concerto, with jarring but thrilling results. His flamboyance and daring make this a delight to read.
– The Washington Post
Derrek Hines simplifies rather than complicates. He takes the ancient fable of Gilgamesh, and does to it to it what West Side Story did for Romeo and Juliet. Hines’s energetic metaphor’s, and nimble whit revivify the thrill of a very old tale.
– The Times
A superb achievement. The cinematic swoops, that terrific, loss-haunted elegy, absolutely packed with reverberating phrases… It is not only a rendering of the poem but a brilliant, vital contemporary commentary on it.
– Abraxis
Hines’ distinctive mode – part surreal, part cinematic – combines the concentration of lyric poetry with the narrative compulsion and fluency of an adventure story.
– The TLS
An evocative lyric journey through the Mesopotamian story, glittering with Hines’ own fresh images.
– The Financial Times
Hines makes vivid what might have died as a dusty footnote. We are fortunate to have a new version of Gilgamesh that makes the ancient world another world altogether.
– The New Criterion
Impressive, consistent and packed with good things.