Dante Alighieri

Inferno: the Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri

A superb translation of Dante’s classic tale that chronicles the poet’s journey through the nine circles of Hell, a dual-language edition vividly rendered and with an introduction and commentary by National Book Award–winning translator Allen Mandelbaum

“Exactly what we have waited for these years, a Dante with clarity, eloquence, terror, and profoundly moving depths.”—Robert Fagles, Princeton University

In the Inferno, renowned translator Allen Mandelbaum brings to life the first and most famous part of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Here is Dante at his ribald, shocking, and demonic best as he describes in unforgettably vivid detail his harrowing descent to the very bottom of the underworld. Filled with politics and philosophy, humor and horror, Dante’s Inferno is an epic poem at once personal and universal that provides a darkly illuminating view into our present world no less than his own. For as we’re led to the last circle of the Inferno, we recognize the very worst in human nature . . . and the ever-abiding potential for redemption.

Stunningly translated, all of Dante’s evocative images—the earthly, sublime, intellectual, demonic, ecstatic—are presented with marvelous precision. This definitive dual-language edition is unsurpassed for its clarity, beauty, and faithfulness to the original.