Dante Alighieri, author portrait

Dante Alighieri

Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), Italy’s greatest poet, was born in Florence and belonged to a noble but impoverished family. He first met Bice Portinari, whom he called Beatrice, in 1274; she inspired his most famous poetry, including the Vita Nuova, which he wrote to console himself when she died in 1290, and The Divine Comedy, which he began seventeen years after her death.
Vita Nuova
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
The Inferno
The Paradiso
The Purgatorio
La vita nuova
The Portable Dante
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
Paradiso
Purgatorio

Books

Vita Nuova
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
The Inferno
The Paradiso
The Purgatorio
La vita nuova
The Portable Dante
The Divine Comedy
The Divine Comedy
Paradiso
Purgatorio

Around the World in 80 Books

On November 9, 2021, the Penguin Press will publish AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 BOOKS: A Literary Journey. 

Inspired by Jules Verne’s hero Phileas Fogg, author David Damrosch, chair of Harvard University’s department of comparative literature and founder of Harvard’s Institute for World Literature, set out to counter a pandemic’s restrictions on travel by exploring eighty exceptional books from around the globe. Following a literary itinerary from London to Venice, Tehran and points beyond, and via authors from Woolf and Dante to Nobel Prize–winners Orhan Pamuk, Wole Soyinka, Mo Yan, and Olga Tokarczuk, he explores how these works have shaped our idea of the world, and the ways in which the world bleeds into literature.

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