The Inferno

＂Halfway tree. The journey of our life found me / there at midnight in a ramshackle state.＂ So begins Lorna Goodison’s astonishing new translation of The Inferno by Dante, a poet she once described as ＂uncompromising as an old testament prophet, stern as a Rastafarian elder.＂

For the last two decades, Goodison has translated and reimagined Dante’s cantos, setting the original poem into her native Jamaica and employing Jamaican expressions and sayings. In doing so, she has attempted to do for Caribbean vernacular what Dante did for his Italian language in the fourteenth century--endow it with an entirely new vocal music and power. In recreating the journey through the ＂unpaved and rocky road＂ of Dante’s Hell for a contemporary audience, Goodison has given us a dazzling and profound new narrative of spiritual yearning for our era.

Lorna Goodison is the author of 15 books of poetry, most recently Mother Muse which was shortlisted for The Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Véhicule Press released her first-ever book of essays in Canada, Redemption Ground, in 2023. Born in Jamaica, Goodison has taught at the University of Toronto and the University of Michigan, and now lives in Halfmoon Bay, British Columbia. Goodison was Jamaica’s Poet Laureate from 2017 to 2020 and was the recipient of The Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2019.

Dante Alighieri was born in 1265 in Florence and is considered Italy’s greatest poet. It is believed that The Divine Comedy, a masterpiece of world literature, was written between 1308 and 1320. He died in Ravenna in 1321.