Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

James Becker, The Dante Conspiracy (2018)

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The Dante Conspiracy was written by James Becker and published by Canelo Adventure (May 28th, 2018).

“When the body of a poetry professor is found tortured in a deserted barn outside Florence, Inspector Perini is assigned to the case.

“No murder of passion, it is clearly a professional job. When, hours later, thieves break into Dante’s cenotaph, it seems the two crimes may be connected by some missing verses from the Divine Comedy.

“They could contain a code so valuable someone is willing to murder for it. But who? And why? As the bodies pile up, Perini is in a deadly race to find the secret before the killers. The truth will prove more shocking than he could have possibly imagined…” [. . .]    —Amazon

Review: Matthew Pearl’s “The Dante Chamber”

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“In The Dante Chamber, Matthew Pearl’s new thriller — a sequel of sorts to his 2003 bestseller The Dante Club — murder takes a literary turn. Sparked by Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, the crimes are solved by a crack team of poets and painters: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, his sister Christina Rossetti, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson and the American doctor-poet-essayist Oliver Wendell Holmes (not to be confused with his son and namesake, the great Supreme Court justice).

“The murders take place in London in 1870. In the first murder, a member of Parliament is killed in a London park; a massive stone has inexplicably been tied around his neck and broken it. Soon thereafter an attractive woman dies on a London street; her eyelids have been sewn shut.

“Gabriel Rossetti, who was in the park during the first murder, disappears. His sister and friends fear for his safety, even as the police suspect he was the killer. Gabriel is fond of opiates and given to erratic behavior. When his wife died he impulsively had all his unpublished poems buried with her. Later, to the horror of many, he had them dug up.” […]    –Patrick Anderson, The Washington Post, June 1, 2018

Francesco Fioretti, La Selva Oscura (2015)

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La Selva Oscura is Italian author and Dante scholar Francesco Fioretti‘s latestLa Selva Oscura book, published in January 2015. The thriller is a reinterpretation of the Inferno in modern Italian. Fioretti has already begun a novel based on Purgatorio, and intends to have published novels corresponding to each of the three canticles by 2021, the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. Fioretti is also the author of Il Libro Segreto di Dante (2011) and La Profezia Perduta di Dante (2013).

“Scopo dichiarato dell’autore è offrire ‘anche al lettore non specialista la preziosa opportunità, (in Italia data di solito solo agli addetti ai lavori), di leggere la prima cantica del poema dantesco dall’inizio alla fine, come un romanzo contemporaneo’, proprio come avviene in altri paesi dove è possibile leggere La Commedia in traduzione , nelle rispettive lingue moderne.”    —Repubblica.it, “Come un thriller l’Inferno di Dante in italiano moderno”

Click here to read an interview with Fioretti about his novel.

Dan Brown, Inferno (2013)

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dan-brown-inferno-2013“Inferno, Dan Brown’s new book about Dante, is coming out on May 14, 2013 from Doubleday in the U.S., and Transworld Publishers in the UK (a division of Random House). Brown announced that he was writing something new in May 2012. Though Brown had been cryptic about the topic of the book, he has now revealed more information. The book will again feature The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and The Lost Symbol‘s lead character Robert Langdon. Brown also noted on The Today Show that it ‘will be set in Europe, in the most fascinating place I’ve ever seen’ (we’re guessing Florence, Italy since that’s where Dante wrote, and Florence’s Duomo church features on the cover of the book). Transworld’s press release for the book relates a bit more: the book will revolve around one of ‘history’s most enduring and mysterious literary masterpieces’ (we’re assuming Dante’s Divine Comedy, with a focus on the Inferno portion, due to the title of the book).

“The title was announced this morning on The Today Show. Readers were invited to participate in the unveiling of the title by posting on Facebook or tweeting, using the hashtag #DanBrownToday that they were helping unveil the title of Dan Brown’s newest book. These readers’ profile pictures then claimed a tile in a mosaic. After enough readers contributed their title suggestions, the new title was revealed. Even if you’ve never read a Dan Brown book, you can guess that the man really enjoys his puzzles.”    –Zoe Triska, The Huffington Post, January 15, 2013

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See also: Janet Maslin, “On a Scavenger Hunt to Save Most Humans,” The New York Times, May 12, 2013

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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