The Inferno of Dante Alighieri

New translation by Ciaran Carson

This startling new translation of Dante's Inferno is by Ciaran Carson, one of contemporary Ireland's most dazzlingly gifted poets. Written in a vigorous and inventive contemporary idiom, while also reproducing the intricate rhyme-scheme that is so essential to the beauty and power of Dante's epic, Carson's virtuosic rendering of the Inferno is that rare thing—a translation with the heft and force of a true English poem. Like Seamus Heaney's Beowulf and Ted Hughes's Tales from Ovid, Ciaran Carson's Inferno is an extraordinary modern response to one of the great works of world literature.

Reviews

[Carson's] creation is no antiquated punishment chamber; rather, it is a hell for our times and is all the more spellbinding for being so.
— Troy Jollimore, San Francisco Chronicle

Carson's Inferno is a creative transformation that deserves our admiration and respect.
— The Observer

This is a Dante not for the shelf but for the eye and voice—addictively readable, virtually demanding to be recited aloud.
— Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times

Dante himself was evidently Carson's kindred spirit after all…the language makes eloquent upward soarings at one moment and vulgar dives into the vernacular at the next, moving like a bolt of lightning from gravity to punchy immediacy.
— The Financial Times

Quite simply the best version of Dante there is.
— Paul Muldoon, The Irish Times

Also see:

Dante By Erich Auerbach Introduction by Michael Dirda An inspiring introduction to one of world's greatest poets and a brilliantly argued essay in the history of ideas.

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