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Dr. Sophus Helle

Image Credit: Maiken Kestner

Former Associated Member

Former Associated Researcher

Sophus Helle is a cultural historian and translator specializing in the poetry of ancient Iraq, especially the Babylonian epics. He holds an MA in Assyriology from the University of Copenhagen and a PhD in Comparative Literature from Aarhus University. In 2019, he translated the Babylonian epic Gilgamesh into Danish with the poet Morten Sondergaard, and his English translation of the same epic appeared in October 2021 with Yale University Press. He is currently completing a book on Enheduana, the first known author, which will include an English translation of her collected poems. He has published widely on premodern authorship; ancient gender, sexuality, and affect; narrative structures in Babylonian poetry; and more. He is a regular contributor to the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen, for whom he reviews new translations of premodern literature.

Associated research project at EXC Temporal Communities:

The Poetics of Philology: A Case Study of the Babylonian Epic Enuma Elish (2021–2023)

The project is funded by the Carlsberg Foundation