Ugalabanda: The boy who got caught up in a war

From the culture which gave birth to the epic of Gilgamesh comes a story which is probably even older. The saga of Ugalabanda has been reconstructed from two fragmentary tales about this hero, a young prince who almost dies on the way to battle with a rival city and is abandoned in a cave by his brothers. After appealing to the gods and befriending through flattery the huge and all-powerful Anzu bird, he rejoins his brothers in the hopeless war. He is then sent to carry an appeal to the goddess Inana, who delivers an enigmatic message that somehow brings about an era of peace. If this sounds rather fragmentary, it is a tribute to the fidelity with which Henderson has rebuilt the story. You can assess the process yourself by perusing translations of the originals in the annals of Sumerian literature at www.etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk, a resource helpfully referenced in the book. The narrative jumps and elisions, the ritual repetitions and indeterminate ending are all characteristic of salvaged epics, and though these features might not contribute much to narrative drive, this story is well worth talking through with readers. The book is beautifully designed, its clear typography spaciously laid out on subtly tinted pages embellished with Jane Ray’s margin motifs and powerful depictions of mythic events.

In a fascinating and informative endnote, Henderson alludes to the relevance of the story to the Iraqi war raging in the land which was Ancient Sumer, a conflict which inspired her to create this work.