Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Johnny Depp to Play Protagonist in Nick Tosches’ Novel “In the Hand of Dante” (2002)

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johnny-depp-to-play-protagonist-in-the-hand-of-dante-2002“Johnny Depp’s production company Infinitum Nihil has acquired screen rights to the Nick Tosches novel ‘In the Hand of Dante.’ The novel will be developed as a potential star vehicle for Depp. . .
Book revolves around Dante’s masterwork “The Divine Comedy,” and tells parallel storylines involving Dante in 14th-century Italy as he tries to complete the work, and a contemporary storyline involving Tosches, who is asked to authenticate what might be Dante’s original manuscript. Depp would play Tosches. The novel was published in 2002.” [. . .]    –Michael Fleming, Variety, December 2, 2008

See Also: MTVnews update on the film’s progress as of July 2011.

Contributed by Patrick Molloy

Nick Tosches, “In the Hand of Dante” (2002)

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nick-tosches-in-the-hand-of-dante-2002“Deftly blending the sacred and the profane, Tosches boldly casts himself as the protagonist in his latest novel, an outrageously ambitious book in which he procures a purloined version of the original manuscript of ‘The Divine Comedy’ while tracing Dante’s journey as Dante struggled to complete his penultimate work. The initial chapters find Tosches looking back and questioning the results of his fascinating life and career, with a brief but devastating aside about the decline of publishing. But Tosches suddenly emerges from his morbid nostalgia when a former character named Louie (a gangster from Tosches’s Cut Numbers) gets his hands on a stolen copy of Dante’s manuscript and asks Tosches to authenticate it. That sends the author on a whirlwind tour to Arizona, Chicago, Paris and then London as he tries to verify the work and then determine its worth on the open market.” [. . .]    –Publishers Weekly, Amazon

Neocommedia: Inferno, Purgatory, Paradise (2002)

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neocommedia    neocommedia-2

“An immersive adaptation of Dante’s Divine Comedy exploring the modern deity of Information.”    —iKatun

“iKatun’s Paradise is based on Dante’s Paradise from the Divine Comedy, however, this Paradise is not about perfect morality but about perfect information. iKatun’s Paradise alludes to instant availability and perfect knowledge; a single data point of infinite density; the faultless model of information to which all media systems aspire; the space where entropy does not exist.”    —iKatun

How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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