Inanna, a goddess of ancient Mesopotamia, was worshipped around 1800 BCE by our ancestors in the land that is now modern-day Iraq. But who was she? Who were her followers? And what did her stories mean for their lives? Lost for millennia, Inanna’s stories were buried and forgotten, unearthed by archaeologists only recently, around the turn of the 19th century. Their translation has been a remarkable work of collaboration by scholars from disparate parts of the globe, as fragments of stone tablets were pieced together and the symbols on them recorded, transliterated, and interpreted. And although we still know relatively little about this ancient time, a picture of this extraordinary figure has slowly begun to emerge, through the painstaking work of these dedicated scholars: Inanna the creator, Inanna the destroyer; the leader, the warrior, the lover, the friend. Inanna was a guiding light for her followers, a commanding symbol of justice and honour, and her stories have much to teach a contemporary readership about love, power, independence, and compassion. Now, these stories are brought to vivid, visceral life by beloved Canadian author Kim Echlin, who brings her trademark passion and poet’s sensibility to the translation of the Inanna myth. With a new introduction and comprehensive notes, this new English version renders Inanna’s powerful story accessible and captivating for a new generation of eager readers.

A nationalist and lifelong journalist, Barbara Moon was the author of hundreds of major articles in magazines such as Maclean's and Saturday Night and features in newspapers such as the Globe and Mail. She wrote dozens of television documentaries, among them several segments of the experimental CBC-TV Images of Canada series, and books, including The Natural History of the Canadian Shield. From 1992 to 1998, she was a senior editor for the Creative Non-fiction and Cultural Journalism Program (now called the Literary Journalism Program) at The Banff Centre. Among relevant honours, Moon held a Maclean-Hunter first prize for Editorial Achievement, the University of Western Ontario's President's Medal, and the National Magazine Foundation's Award for Outstanding Achievement. Barbara Moon died in April 2009 near her home in Picton, Ontario, after a brief illness. Kim Echlin is the author of Elephant Winter, nominated for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award and won the TORGI Talking Book of the Year Award. Her latest novel is The Disappeared. After completing a doctoral thesis on Ojibway story-telling, she travelled in search of stories through the Marshall Islands, China, France, and Zimbabwe. On her return to Canada she became an arts documentary producer with CBC's The Journal, and a writer for various publications. Don Obe is a professor emeritus of magazine journalism, a former chair of the school and founder of the Ryerson Review of Journalism. His professional experience includes editor-in-chief of The Canadian magazine and Toronto Life, and associate editor of Maclean's. From 1989 to 1999 he was senior resident editor in and, at times, the director of the Creative Nonfiction and Cultural Journalism Program (now called the Literary Journalism Program) at the Banff Centre. He won a gold medal in the National Magazine Awards for ethical writing and, in l993, his industry's highest honour, the National Magazine Award for Outstanding Achievement. He retired in 2001.

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