Contact
You can reach me at my work email: email at sophushelle dot com.
Bio
PhD in Comparative Literature from Aarhus University, 2020; MA in Assyriology from the University of Copenhagen, 2017; winner of the European Young Researcher Award 2020 Popular Prize and the Aarhus University Research Foundation 2021 PhD Prize. Since September 2021, I have been a postdoctoral fellow at Freie Universität Berlin with a stipend from the Carlsberg Foundation. I am a regular contributor to the Danish newspaper Weekendavisen and a board member of the Danish Institute in Athens.
I am writer with a passion for taking seemingly obscure topics and making them relevant to my readers. I have written on subjects as diverse as Babylonian epics, climate change, medieval philosophy, love in Disney, and the art of falling, but I am always driven by the same desire: to share the facts that fascinate me, and to make them as compelling as I can. All my writing is infused by this urge; I call it “Advanced Show & Tell.”
PS: My translations of Gilgamesh and the poems of Enheduana have become the basis of various modern adaptations—in theater, music, etc. Find an overview of those adaptations here.
PPS: I’ve made a keyboard layout that makes it easier to transcribe and transliterate Akkadian and Sumerian. Download it here.
Photograph by Morten Søndergaard. Find more author photos here.