Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Purgatory Poetry Collection, Raúl Zurita Canessa (1979)

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“Raúl Zurita Canessa (b.1950) is a prominent Chilean poet whose work Purgatory is the first of three works based on the poetry of Dante (the other two being Anteparadise [1982], and The New Life [1994]). The late poet C.D. Wright provided the foreword to this English translation from Spanish published by the University of California Press. Wright wrote, ‘Purgatorio is arguably the seminal literary text of Chile’s 9/11/1973, the date of the U.S.-backed military coup led by Augusto Pinochet which overthrew the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende. With his first published collection, the young Chilean poet began his Dantean trilogy, his long, arduous pilgrimage toward earthly redemption.'”     –Contributor Devin Shepherd

Contributed by Devin Shepherd (University of Arkansas, ’22)

“Why Roberto Bolaño Haunts Latin Literature”

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“A frustrated poet, he turned to prose in his 30s to pay his bills—and shone. Many of his novels may seem facile, packed with talky introspection and postpubescent brooding, but in fact are densely layered tales, with scores of narrators, soaked in erudition and mordant social comment. A ferocious reader, Bolaño wrote with Cervantes, Dante, and Homer looking over his shoulder.”    –Mac Margolis, Newsweek, April 16, 2012

“Vagabonds”

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“Lacouture, having known Belano since he was a teen-ager, gives the novel’s most detailed account of his imprisonment in Chile; in her view, his efforts against the Pinochet regime were noble but tainted him, as he returned to Mexico a preening radical who looked down on his old friends ‘as if he were Dante and he’d just returned from hell.'”    –Daniel Zalewski, The New Yorker, March 19, 2007

“‘Dante’s Inferno’ in Chile: All-Time National Heat Record Smashed by 6°F”

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Dantes-Inferno-in-Chile“The first all-time national heat record of 2017 was set in spectacular fashion on Thursday in Chile, where at least twelve different stations recorded a temperature in excess of the nation’s previous all-time heat record—a 41.6°C (106.9°F) reading at Los Angeles on February 9, 1944. According to international weather records researcher Maximiliano Herrera, the hottest station on Thursday was Cauquenes, which hit 45.0°C (113°F). The margin by which the old record national heat record was smashed: 3.6°C (6.1°F), was extraordinary, and was the second largest such difference Herrera has cataloged (the largest: a 3.8°C margin in New Zealand in 1973, from 38.6°C to 42.4°C.) Herrera cautioned, though, that the extraordinary high temperatures on Thursday in Chile could have been due, in part, to the effects of the severe wildfires burning near the hottest areas, and the new record will need to be verified by the weather service of Chile.” — Jeff Masters, “‘Dante’s Inferno’ in Chile: All-Time National Heat Record Smashed by 6°F” for wundergroundblog.com

Wildfire in Santa Olga, Chile (2017)

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Guardian-Wildfire-Chile-Dantes-Inferno“An entire town has been consumed by flames in Chile as unusually hot, dry weather undermined efforts to combat the worst forest fires in the country’s recent history.

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“‘Nobody can imagine what happened in Santa Olga. What we have experienced here is literally like Dante’s Inferno,’ said Carlos Valenzuela, the mayor of the encompassing municipality Constitución. ‘We were recovering after the last earthquake, but this tragedy has messed up everything.'” — Jonathan Watts, “Deadly wildfire razes entire town in Chile: ‘Literally like Dante’s Inferno’,” The Guardian (January 26, 2017)

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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