Enheduanna’s Song From the Sands
by Ellen Rachlin
Discover the untold story of Enheduanna, the world’s first named author, as she navigates power, betrayal, and divine destiny in ancient Mesopotamia. A mesmerizing fusion of history, myth, and female leadership that challenges how we see the past—and ourselves.
A high priestess dethroned. A rebel with a dangerous plan. One empire hanging by a thread.
When Enheduanna is named High Priestess of Ur, her connection to the gods makes her a target. Lugalanne’s coup strips her of robes, power, and home, casting her into the perilous underworld. There, amid forests of shadows and treacherous trials, she discovers that divine favor alone won’t save her—only cunning, courage, and a willingness to embrace the ruthlessness of her enemies can restore her.
Drawing on history and myth, Enheduanna’s Song From the Sands follows the world’s first named author as she fights to reclaim her voice and her destiny. Political intrigue, betrayal, and divine tests collide as Enheduanna must decide whether to forgive, to fight, or to harness the power that could shake the foundations of an empire. For readers who love The Song of Achilles’s intimate heroism, Circe’s mythic depth, or The Daughters of Sparta’s fierce women, this is a mesmerizing dive into ancient Mesopotamia where courage and cunning are the only paths to survival.
Praise for Enheduanna's Song From The Sands:
"In finely detailed prose, Ellen Rachlin brings Enheduanna, daughter of Sargon, to life, as well as the mythic figures of Inanna and Ereshkigal of the Underworld. Enheduanna’s Song From the Sands is filled with conflict and intensity, each quest, not only a matter of achieving power, but of life and death."
~ Regina McBride, author of Stranger from Across the Sea
"Enheduanna was such a powerful FMC in this book and woman in real life, I’m truly so grateful to have learned about her. Ellen Rachlin’s writing captures the powerful and divine moments of Enheduanna’s life and suspends them before you so you may be there right alongside..."
~ Morgan, ARC Reviewer
"Enheduanna's hymns to the goddess Inanna are the first known literary works to name an author. Rachlin brings her to life in this novel set in 2300 BCE, a novel of sex, war, love, a baby in a basket, and a woman creating a new order of being. It’s historical fiction writing that reminds the reader of Hilary Mantel, you can’t put it down. You want to follow the priestess to bed, to rise, to her last fighting breath. Rachlin won’t let you put this book down."
~ Kate Gale, author of Under a Neon Sun and Little Soldiers
Who was Enheduanna?
Enheduanna, the world's first named author, High Priestess of Ur, and daughter of Sargon the Great, the world's first emperor lived in an era when religion, politics, and commerce were intertwined, and the gods determined one's fate. The society was well-organized, the rules were sophisticated, yet there was quite a bit of brutality. This was ~2300 BCE in ancient Mesopotamia.
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| The only extant image of Enheduanna, central figure in artifact. |
She evolves from a naïve, kind teenager into a vengeful woman and then back to compassion and humility. To survive, she has to be relentlessly determined. Initially, Enheduanna doesn’t realize that she inherited her father's enemies, including the children of those enemies.
Enheduanna idolizes her father who prioritized securing her an independent and powerful future. He respected that his wife and Enheduanna's mother was strong-willed and independent and he wanted that for his daughter. This becomes part of her psyche—to carry out what she believes would have made her father proud. As well, Enheduanna's grandmother who was a high priestess comes to Enheduanna in a vision. In that vision, she urges her granddaughter to become as memorable as the great men of their time. Enheduanna believes that she has a destiny to fulfil and she is determined to do just that. She finds herself alone, pushing this agenda after her father passed away. When her brothers offer reluctant support and rebels violently oppose her installation as a religious leader, this only makes her more determined.
Everyone in a position of power who is alive either doesn't care about her fate or wants her removed. Enheduanna has to plead to her brother, the King of Akkad, to carry out their father's wishes. He only acquiesces when he realizes that appointing her in the heart of rebel territory, ancient Sumer, will insult the local population. He sends her there with little in the way of protective forces. While traveling to Ur, she has a traumatic encounter with the rebel most angered by her appointment. Instead of defeating her, he enrages her. This begins her brutal reign in Sumer. She succeeds with this approach for a while but when it fails, which it does spectacularly, she must find another way. She refuses to relinquish her dream of leading her followers in Ur and Uruk.
But Enheduanna's conflicts are far from solely external. Just before she assumes her post as a high priestess, a rebel named Lugalanne brutally targets her. Only then does she realize the depth of his animosity. The humiliation forces her to choose to prove herself or retreat. She chooses to become as ruthless as the people she fights. And in her world, the favor of the right god matters, and who better to understand her needs than the terrifying god of the underworld, Ereshkigal. When accompanied by her god husband, Enheduanna is permitted to travel to the underworld, a place where the living are forbidden. She craves this journey and this is how she learns to hold her enemies at bay.
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| The author's visualisation of Enheduanna. |
Ultimately, this costs the people close to her, her god husband, and eventually, her temple. She defended her territory at a high price: her followers and supporters fear her wrath. She has to reckon with all of this, including her costly alliance with Ereshkigal, before she can make amends to the people of her region and be restored as high priestess. She discovers that she must find her way into the god Inanna's favor, as she is the one god who can truly help Enheduanna. Violence can't subdue a god; Enheduanna turns to her gift of writing to make her case and honor the gods. Through her deepening understanding of what true leadership demands, she comes to realize that real power is in compassion.
This realization makes her the world’s first named author.
Ellen Rachlin
Ellen Rachlin’s poetry has appeared in American Poetry Review, Comstock Review, Granta, Court Green, Literary Imagination, and various anthologies. She has published two collections of her poems, Until Crazy Catches Me (Antrim House, 2008) and Permeable Divide (Antrim House, 2017), winner of the 2018 IBPA Benjamin Franklin Silver Award.
She has a historical fiction novel, Enheduanna’s Song From the Sands, based on the life of Enheduanna, the Akkadian high priestess and world’s first-named author, forthcoming from Histria Books and a collection of poems, At the Big Bang Resort, forthcoming from Red Hen Press.
She is also the author of two chapbooks, Waiting for Here (Finishing Line Press, 2004), a finalist in the New Women's Voices series, and Captive to Residue (Flarestack Publishing, 2009). She received her MFA from Antioch University. She serves as treasurer of the Poetry Society of America and is a partner at Blue Leaf Ventures.
Other writing genres include numerous textbook and journal articles on the subject of finance and investing with various publishers including Wiley.
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