New Hope for Old Stories
New Hope for Old Stories

Yiyun Li’s "Gilgamesh" and Ali Smith’s "Antigone"

Author(s): Sheila Murnaghan, Deborah H. Roberts
Subject(s): Pre-WW I & WW I (1900 -1919), Interwar Period (1920 - 1939), WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Post-War period (1950 - 1989), Transformation Period (1990 - 2010)
Published by: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: Yiyun Li; Ali Smith; Sophocles; Antigone; Ismene; tragedy; Gilgamesh; Enkidu; epic; Mesopotamia
Summary/Abstract: Myth may be a source of hope for children and young adults, but children may themselves be envisioned as myth’s best hope: fresh readers whose engagement with stories grants those stories continuing life. This hope is at the heart of the “Save the Story” series, in which noted authors rewrite literary works for children. Two books in the series retell ancient myths: Yiyun Li’s "The Story of Gilgamesh" and Ali Smith’s "The Story of Antigone". Both writers produce stories they hope will help their readers grow into admirable adults. Li recasts Gilgamesh as a child, his journey glossed as progress towards adult understanding; Smith uses animal intermediaries and flashes of irreverence to temper a story she presents as terrible yet nourishing. Their hope is that readers will so value stories that have made them who they are that they will in turn perpetuate those stories, keeping them safe from oblivion.

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