Dante's Divine Comedy

It took Alasdair Gray [t]he best Scottish novelist since Sir Walter Scott (Anthony Burgess) more than thirty years to write Lanark described by The Observer as probably the greatest novel of the century. Upon its publication in the U.S. in 1985 The New York Times described it in its Notable Books year-end review as a quirky crypto-Calvinist Divine Comedy that should be widely read. Now more than thirty years later Gray has translated and illustrated the Divine Comedy itself. One of the masterpieces of world literature completed in 1320 Dante's Divina Commedia describes Dante's journey through Hell Purgatory and his eventual arrival in Heaven. In this new fully illustrated version of Dante's masterpiece Alasdair Gray offers an original translation in prosaic English rhyme. The subject of a New Yorker profile in 2015 and a Paris Review Art of Fiction interview in 2016 Gray has said: I now have no ideas for more works of fiction and expect none. Instead we have the work he was born to create eagerly awaited by a new generation of Gray fans from Jeff Vandermeer to Jessa Crispin who have been button-holing American book culture for years about this remarkable writer. Accessible modern and sublimely illustrated this ravishing edition yokes two great literary minds seven hundred years apart and brings the classic text alive for the twenty-first century. Like Heaney's Beowulf this is the work Gray was born to create and like Beowulf and Emily Wilson's Odyssey it will have an immediate and lasting impact on our culture.